


Somewhere A Clock is Ticking

by jonny_vrm (elmo_loves_me)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-06
Updated: 2006-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:48:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elmo_loves_me/pseuds/jonny_vrm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Well, let's see, he only tried to shoot me in the</i> face<i>, for one."</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere A Clock is Ticking

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU, obviously, as Max (see: [Nightmare, S1.13](http://thewb.warnerbros.com/shows/supernatural/episodes/113)) doesn't die by suicide at the end of the ep and instead chooses to accompany Sam and Dean on the road. Sam gets kidnapped. Again. Wacky hijinks ensue.
> 
> 6 months, 82 pages, 30,700 words, 4 lj-posted sections and 83 e-mails to Dru later... this. Enjoy, please. I know I did.

"You know, Sam," Dean muses, "maybe this whole thing would be all right. That is, if he didn't, uh, _hate me_."

Sam keeps his eyes fixed on the battered restroom door, his arm hanging out the Impala window. His fingernails beat a quick tattoo against the black paint.

"What do you mean?" Sam asks, distracted. There's a piece of sweaty hair clinging to his temple.

"Well, let's see, he only tried to shoot me in the_ face_, for one."

"That was then," Sam says, squinting against the sun. "Don't you think he's taking a long time in there?"

"I think Max can take care of himself, Sam," Dean says dryly, "seeing as how he's telekinetic and all. He'd never run out of toilet paper, that's for sure."

Dean flicks a glance out the other window, tracks a chick in stilettos from the pump to the gas station door.

Hot.

"Anyway, the point is," Dean continues, "it's supposed to be Sam and Dean, not Sam and Dean and Maxine the psycho-killer."

Florida sunshine swelters outside, wavering over the asphalt and rolling in the vents. All the windows are down but they aren't doing any good as the heat blurs the breeze down to nothing at all.

"That's another thing – I don't think he appreciates you calling him that."

"Maxine?"

"Yeah," Sam raises a hand and swipes the hair back off of his forehead. His cheeks are flushed.

"That's because he wants to_ kill _me – he doesn't appreciate anything I say."

"You could try being a little more, I don't know, accessible," Sam says, exasperated.

Exasperated! Like Max isn't plotting to murder Dean as they speak.

"Sam, I am the most accessible person around," Dean smirks, "but I don't think he _wants _that kind of access."

Sam spares him a look, "Nobody wants that kind of access."

"Tell that to your girlfriend," Dean shoots back without thinking, snapping his mouth shut a second too late. Heart rabbitting in his chest, he stares at Sam.

His brother is still, jaw clenched, and it's that exact moment that Max chooses to come out of the bathroom. His eyes and nose are red like he's been crying, and Sam sighs.

"We'll finish this later," Sam says dully, before getting out of the car and going to Max, slinging a friendly arm around his shoulders.

Max looks up, face loosening in a watery smile, and Sam's eyes are radiant and soft, comforting even at this distance. Max murmurs something, his head dropping as he scrubs a hand over his mouth, and Sam's hand moves up to ruffle Max's hair as he responds just as quietly.

Dean knows what it's like to feel lonely, to feel abandoned, but this? This tops all.

Especially with Sam close enough to touch.

***

Dean's learned to ignore Sam and Max when they practice. He flips through Dad's journal, rubbing grease stains under his fingers and remembering take-out dinners and late night strategizing. He polishes knives and cracks shotguns, examining shells.

By now, he manages not to jump every time his chair shudders or something shuffles across the floor without anyone touching it. It's adaptation and assimilation, same as his entire life, and he's accepted it as easily as he accepted black magic and exorcisms and things that went bump in the night.

Sam on the other hand, Sam was hard. While Dean had always loved hunting, loved the smell of it, the sore muscles, the kick of a gun in his hand, Sam hated the simple_ idea _of the supernatural. Hell, even now just the two of them alone – and Max, but that's beside the point – Dean can tell that Sam would rather sit in the moldy motel room than go out and save the world.

His little brother is one weird kid, ginormous psychic brain included.

Dean absent-mindedly ducks as the TV remote whizzes past him, and then casts a beady eye on Sam and Max, giggling on the other side of the room. _Giggling. _ Winchester men do not giggle, period, end of story, grow a pair or leave the fucking line.

"You two having fun?" Dean grunts, hefting a knife in an extremely manly way. Maybe Sam will catch on and realize that his dignity is ass-up and dying.

Sam only laughs harder and Dean purses his lips, sliding the knife into a sheath, feeling a headache bite into the soft flesh behind his eyes. Max's gaze darts back and forth between Sam and Dean and Dean's face starts to feel hot.

No fucking way is he blushing; what's he got to blush about, anyway? He's been around the block, shit, he's been around the fucking_ neighborhood_, and Mr. Roger's got nothing on him so what the hell is he blushing for?

Stupid Maxine.

"I need a beer – you ladies want anything? Milk? Juice?"

Sam sobers. "Nah, I'm good. Thanks, dude."

Dean looks at Max expectantly, and Max – looks back. Dean can almost feel where his shoulder is pushing against Sam, they're sitting so close.

It doesn't mean anything. It can't mean anything. There was Jess, and all the one-shot-hotties in high school, and Sam's not – there's no way he's –

"Maxine? I asked you a question, man," Dean says. It's an effort to keep his voice calm. "I can dig the 'strong silent' shit, but don't be a moron."

Max grins. One of his front teeth is crooked, presses into his lower lip.

"I'll take that beer."

"Dude, you're underage," Sam says, smacking Max on the back of the head, and Max turns great cow-eyes to his face.

"I know – just seeing what I can get away with."

Sam puts Max in a headlock and nods at Dean. "Go ahead, I'll take care of this."

Dean blinks. He steps carefully over the salt line on his way out.

Apparently, Sam wanted two brothers.

Or maybe Dean was never good enough.

***

Dean always enters a room first.

It's residual, left over from when Dad would kick his ass if he let anything happen to Sam, and with the life they lead? Dean doesn't plan on letting it change anytime soon. Sam is just… Sam, and Dean's fucked if he'll let anything get the drop on him.

Sam's picked up this vast importance, like he'll tear a hole in Dean if he leaves and Dean will never be able to fix it. It's hard to analyze and Dean tries not to think about it, how dependent he's become, when he swore he'd never need anybody ever again.

Sam caught on after about the fifth time Dean cut him off on the way into a diner. He didn't say anything, just hesitated outside the door for an extra breath, eyes heavy on the back of Dean's neck. Since then, Sam's always let Dean go first, which is weird since Sam's usually a pain in the ass about those kinds of things.

Max though, Max doesn't know shit.

He always saunters ahead, like he's King Everlasting or something, and Sam is inevitably right on his heels. Dean is _last_ for the first time ever and he hates it. He can't even wrap his head around it, that Sam _knows _how Dean feels about this and still blows it off.

It's driving Dean up the fucking wall.

Every time Sam sets foot in a room that Dean hasn't cased, he feels this zero-gravity lurch in his chest, that _oh shit it's now it's now it's going to be this time_ feeling, until nothing happens and Dean's heart is racing, his shirt is damp, and he's got nowhere to channel his adrenaline rush.

Basically, Sam's being a complete dickwad about it.

Dean decides he needs to lay all his cards on the table, and grabs Sam's arm the next time Max gets out of the car at a roadside, family restaurant.

"Dude, what the fuck is up with you?"

"Huh?" Sam says intelligently.

Dean rolls his eyes. "Why won't you let me go first?" he finishes.

Sam's mouth parts, slow intake of breath, and Dean rushes on, his face stiff and embarrassed.

"I mean, you know, what-the-fuck-ever, but I wish you'd tell me when you want to change things up. Just drop me a line or something. 'Hey, Dean, stop being a grandma,' yeah?"

Sam is staring at Dean like he's the most interesting puzzle in the world, like he's got a Rubix cube for a brain and it's Sam's job to reach inside and_ twist _until Dean's orange on one side, blue on the other, and easily decipherable. Dean forces himself not to look at Sam's lips, the dimple pressing itself into his cheek as a slow smile gropes across his face.

"Are you worried about me?"

"Fuck no!" Dean gasps, before slapping a palm to his forehead because ohmygod can he get_ any_ more obvious? Might as well grow a set of tits while he's at it, the lipstick's always off-brand cheap in these kinds of places, anyway.

"Yeah, sure, _ whatever_," Sam drawls, shaking his head and laughing, before popping the car door open and standing up, stretching in the sun.

Dean gets out on the other side and stares at him over the roof of the car, waiting.

Sam scratches his nose, squinting into the glare of light off the glass diner door. "Dean, I know this is a thing for you, but I'm not eight anymore."

"You're still my brother," Dean grumbles. He picks at a hangnail, stares at his scuffed boots. He hates this emo shit.

"Yeah, your brother who's saved_ your _ass more than once; I don't need you to shelter me anymore," Sam gazes earnestly at Dean, "I need you to watch my back, man, but you gotta at least let me get my feet wet."

Dean's thumb skitters along the edge of the side-mirror, smearing the chrome, and he can almost _feel_ his freckles forming. Jesus H. "I know," he sighs, "I just wish –"

"You guys, I'm starving. What's going on out here?"

Both Sam and Dean jump, startled. Max is hanging on the open diner door, inquisitive eyes fixed on them as he swings slowly back and forth.

Sam sighs. "Max, just give us a minute."

Sam looks mildly annoyed, but mostly amused. Dean is seething. He seems to do that a lot whenever Max is around, the little asswipe.

"I'm sorry, then. I was just wondering."

Max goes back inside.

"You wish what?" Sam asks, like Max hasn't just destroyed the moment.

Dean looks over at Sam, and there's that face again, that sharp, Rubix-cube-cracking, puppy face that's spilled his guts for him more than once. Well, not this time, pretty boy.

If Sam wants answers, then Sam is going to have to try harder.

"Never mind. Come on, Max is hungry."

Dean is quick to slip through the door in front of Sam and this time the only thing in the room that brings out the _now now now it's this time_ is Max himself, sitting smiling the smile of the innocent in the corner booth.

***

Dean always thought the Winchesters were the smartest guys in the room. The ones who knew what was going down behind the scenes, who knew what to do when the shit hit the fan; he's always thought they were the go-to boys of the business, the best at kicking ass and chewing 'em up and spitting 'em out.

All that means one thing to Dean: don't trust anyone.

Stuff happens to people you trust – demonic possessions at the most inconvenient times, back stabbings in the literal sense – thing's just aren't what they used to be when Johnny Q. down the block gave you his X-men toy and hey, whaddya know, friends for life.

It's a simple mantra to remember, actually. Winchesters don't trust nobody, no-how. Not even themselves.

Which is one reason why it's so goddamned strange how fast Sam has grown attached to Max. After all, Sam_ knows _the cardinal rules – dad made sure of that. Sam's just not_ following _them anymore, which could be left over from his fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on teenage years, or could just be Sam being stubborn and social and really too nice for his own good.

And Max? Sam really _trusts _Max.

Dean doesn't know how it happened, but one day he walked in on Sam showing Max Dad's journal, and it was then that it hit him, just like that, a gut-punch and a kick to the head all in one.

He can remember saying, 'What are you doing?' and Sam glancing up with this_ look _on his face like, _ why not? _ Dean could think of several hundred reasons, starting with _suicidal_, and _face shooter_ and _crazy psycho_!

Instead, Sam said, "Showing Max the journal. He'll be hunting with us, right?"

Dean almost said something about not wanting any spoon-bender watching _his_ back – besides Sam, of course – when Sam leaned over and ruffled Max's hair. There was this moment, this thread of connection between them where their eyes met and overlapped and Max licked his lips. Dean had to – he had to look away before somebody got dropkicked.

Then he heard himself say, "All right," because after a good fight with a werewolf no one can tell who snapped whose neck or where the scratches on your face and arms came from.

Dean's never almost planned a murder before, but Max is pushing him so goddamn _hard_.

Which is exactly why Dean insists on his own distance from the kid; sure, Sam and Psycho Maxine can have their little tea parties in the backseat, trading notes on headaches and visions, but Dean doesn't have to listen to it. Isn't that what radios are for, anyway?

It's only after he cranks Metallica for the fourth time, and it fades to softness again with nobody near the volume knob that he loses it and pulls over, throwing an arm over the seat and smacking Sam on the side of the head.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"

Sam and Max are the pictures of innocence, although Sam ruins it a little by rubbing his ear ruefully.

"Radio broken?" Sam inquires, face perfectly straight, and Dean's vision goes red around the edges.

"Listen you guys, I put up with your psychic shit all fucking day," he hisses, and Sam's eyes flicker uneasily. Max's grin is fading fast. "Now, this is_ my _goddamned car, and if you want to move things with your stupid little powers at the motel, fine, but you _keep your goddamned brains off of my car_."

The silence rings loud, and Dean's panting like he's run a marathon, his breath thundering against the windows.

"You got me, you little shits? You think I'm fucking around? Next time the radio does something without me, you're both fucking_ dead_."

"Fine, Dean," Sam sounds blank, like a chalkboard wiped clean.

Dean starts to feel bad, remorse creeping in, but then he looks at Max, sees the smile just barely tweak the corners of his mouth, and gets angry all over again. He turns around without an apology, blasts his Metallica, and screeches back onto the road.

The music doesn't stutter anymore, and it's only after three more miles that Dean realizes the steady pounding is getting to him.

***

The first time it happens should be a haze of alcohol and regret, torn edges of memory not quite stitching together in his head. But Dean's never really followed the rules, and he remembers so fast and clear that it's like he's watching it on TV.

It's a stakeout. Well, not exactly a stakeout, more of an "observational outing", if that makes sense, and what the hell does it matter, anyway. The house isn't very haunted and neither of them is paying attention after the first twenty minutes, Dean absent-mindedly flicking his lighter.

On. Off. On. Off.

Sam's face seems to move in and out of the light, catching the corner of Dean's eye every time the spark flares.

On. Off. On. Off.

"Would you quit it."

Dean doesn't even pause. Sam sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

"Seriously Dean, I'm not above castration on the grounds of 'really fucking annoying'."

"That's nice. I'd like to see you try."

On. Off. On. Off.

Dean's not surprised when the lighter's tugged out of his hands, drifting swiftly into Sam's waiting fingers. Sam shoves it in a pocket, smiles sideways at Dean.

"Never listen, do you."

"Ah, Christ, not more of this fucking psychic crap."

Sam's face stiffens, wedged in a smile that looks like a frown. He turns towards Dean, and the moonlight smudges his eyelashes against his cheek. Dean tries not to notice.

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you ask Max what I mean," Dean mutters, embarrassed, wanting to stop this conversation in its tracks, but instead he hears a slight intake of breath from Sam and the rustle of fabric against the seat.

"Max? Is that what this is about?"

Dean refuses to answer.

"It is, isn't it; you're jealous! Of _Max_. Aren't you, Dean?" Sam's voice rises, higher and triumphant at the end of each word.

Dean can feel it chipping away at his carefully cultivated control.

Sam starts to laugh and the low, throaty sound of disbelief scrapes Dean's ears.

"Real mature, Dean. Take it out on the homeless kid."

That's it. That's all it takes. Dean's got Sam slammed up against the door in less time than it takes for him to think about it.

"Don't you _ever_ say that," Dean grits through his teeth, his forearm pressing into the soft skin of Sam's neck, "We're the homeless ones, not Max. And it's not about him."

"Then what," Sam forces out, his eyes blazing, challenging.

Dean kisses him, slant of mouth across Sam's like he's the only one who'll ever have it, pushes tongue inside and over like Sam needs this, too. Sam's frozen, not even breathing, and Dean isn't stopping, can't stop. Sam's thigh trembles under Dean's fingers, dragging nails, and it's when Dean cups Sam's crotch that finally there's a reaction.

Finally. _He'll fix this me us_.

But all Sam does is arch into the touch, his lips sliding up as his head tilts back on a quiet gasp, and Dean's hungry mouth lands on his throat.

Dean can't see it, won't see it, goddamn _refuses_ to see it, the way Sam_ aches _for this. He only did it to make Sam stop talking, to distract him. It's wrong wrong wrong but Sam's going along with it.

Why? _ Fuck! Stop me, you fucker! _

Dean's hand fumbles with buttons and zipper, slips inside Sam's jeans and boxers with steady purpose, pulls out Sam's cock and shapes it with his fingers, the velvety length of it, feels Sam's trembles through his palm like they're a desperate heartbeat.

"Dean…" Sam chokes out.

Dean thought he wanted Sam to hit him, pound his fucking face in. He thought he wanted Sam to hate him, but now that Sam's open and searching for the words, Dean pushes them away. He knows that it _is_ about Max, about ownership, and that he wants Sam's brain full of DeanDean_Dean_ and nothing else, no psychic flashcard quizzes or hollow, deceitful Max-eyes.

Dean can feel himself burning but he doesn't want this to end.

A nip across Sam's carotid, toothy drag back up to his jaw, his ear, hot breath inside, and Dean says, "Do you let him do this to you?"

His voice is dangerous, low, razor-sharp and silken-soft at the same time.

Dean strokes Sam's cock again, fingers playing around the tip, circling and twisting, and Sam jerks helplessly, turning his face into Dean's and searching with his swollen mouth.

Dean holds back.

"Answer me."

"Wh – who," Sam whines. His eyes are closed tightly and his cheeks are flushed a delicious, vibrant pink.

Dean sinks his teeth lightly into Sam's high cheekbone, wanting to taste and mark and cherish, to catalogue so he can forget.

"You know who."

"No. No, Dean, he never – I never – God, I swear," Sam bites his lip when Dean's tongue teases over the corner of his mouth, and twists his head again, lips glossy and ripe with begging.

Dean pulls away, plants a palm in the middle of Sam's chest, and goes down on him in one smooth glide. Sam keens above Dean, heart hammering against his breastbone and Dean can _feel _it, a distant echo in his mouth. Sam is salty and sweet, forbidden fruit, heavy on his tongue, thick between his lips and Dean is lost. He closes his eyes and savors the sharp tang of _Sam_. He'll never be able to give this up.

He should. It should never have started.

"Fuck, Dean. Fuck, your mouth–" Sam sounds breathy and shocked.

Dean scrapes his teeth gently up Sam's cock, licks a broad stripe down the side, buries his nose in Sam's pubic hair, rough denim and zipper pressing into his cheek.

"You like that?" He murmurs the question so softly, lips moving over fragile skin, and Sam's hand threads into his hair. His fingers are careful even now, rolling over Dean's temple, and Dean swallows him down again, meeting Sam's eyes until Sam's roll back and he's coming down Dean's throat.

Dean takes it all, every last drop, and then wipes the side of his mouth with his thumb and sucks that clean, too. He sits up and stares at Sam.

"Dean, what… what was that?" Sam murmurs, his eyes sex-heavy and lazy. His shirt is rucked up, and he's the picture of debauchery, sprawled across the front seat of the Impala, one leg up, the other leg down, a hand clinging to the dash like it's keeping him grounded.

Dean opens his pleasure-bruised mouth, thinks better, closes it and gets out of the car.

"Dean –!" Sam's startled voice cuts off once the car door slams, and Dean can think again.

"What the fuck just happened," he says aloud, but he knows.

Dean knows that Sam is_ his _now, that Max can never take him away, and Dean hates himself for it. He hates himself for what he craves, the taste and the smell and God the_ feel _of Sam under over all around, pressing up and greedy fingers caressing the side of his face.

He hates himself for just taking Sam like that, like what they are doesn't even matter, like the most important part of their lives – their brotherhood – is just a false front.

Dean ignores the come drying in his boxers – _creamed my own pants_– and starts to walk. There was a bar somewhere back there, not too far.

Like they say, time to drown his sorrows.

He doesn't look back when Sam stumbles out of the Impala and onto the sidewalk, calling Dean's name as he turns the corner.

Sam doesn't follow him.

***

Dean's on his fifth beer and his sixth shot before he lets himself count the ways he's fucked up, and really, it's almost sickening how much he's okay with what happened. It's not every day you blow your little brother up against a car door, but obviously Dean's subconscious likes to try new things. Plus, when he looks at it closely through the amber scrim of beer, he sees that there was nothing sexual about it. Even though he fucking came in his pants, like a _kid_. It had everything and _anything_ to do with Max.

Max, who uses the second towel in the bathroom after Sam but before Dean, and goddammit if the chain-smoking, Mexican maid only left two in the first place.

Max, who eats up Sam's time and Sam's energy and Sam's mind, teaching him all the things Dean can't and never could and never will be able to, no matter how much he bleeds or cries or sacrifices.

Max, who watches Sam when he thinks no one is paying attention, walking half-lidded eyes over Sam's shoulders when he stretches in the morning, over his tanned neck when he throws his head back and laughs.

Max, who's already royally screwed both of their lives, especially Dean's because, call him crazy, he's never felt the need to fuck his brother before now.

Dean tells himself it's only a blinding, brutal flash of ownership – it has to be. _Mine mine mine you can't have him _was all Dean could think about, all Dean could _breathe_, before he got his hands and his mouth on Sam. Now? Now he feels strangely peaceful.

Sam is ruined – Dean's just as broken as always – but at least they can be broken together.

Maybe, after enough time, Dean'll twist one way, Sam the other, and they'll discover that they _fix_ each other – fill in the broken edges, spackle all the holes right up – and that they always did, they just couldn't see it before. Dean blinks bleary eyes, sighs into his beer, and tries to think about the one time he can remember Sam saying, "I love you."

It was so long ago, through the haze and heat-ripple of too many summers, back when Sam was always Sammy and Dean was always relevant, indispensable like only older brothers can be.

Sam was sleep-warm in Dean's arms, face pressed hot to Dean's neck though the sliding damp of tears. The window was open, no curtains, no screen, and muggy breeze draped over his face with every slow beat of his heart. He was still half-asleep, but Sammy was clinging to him with the near-panic of a fresh nightmare.

(_All right? _)

(_Dean, I couldn't – I couldn't find –_ )

(_Shhhh, it's over now. It's done. I got you, Sammy, I got you. _)

Sammy's little-boy hands, bitten ragged fingernails, scratched along the underside of Dean's chin; breath soured from hours of sleep puffed against Dean's ear. Sammy's body was softening with relief, practically melting into Dean, choo-choo train pajamas giving way to hairless skin. Dean stroked lethargically up and down Sammy's spine, soothing and drifting at the same time.

(_Dean? _)

(_Mmm? _)

(_I love you. _)

Dean laughed, low in his throat.

(_You're not supposed to say that. _)

(_No, Dean, I_ love_ you. _)

Dean had drawn back, looked Sammy in the eye under gauzy lashes. His plump lips were open and earnest, quivering in a way that was purely Sammy. Dean could tell he was about to cry.

(_Okay, Sammy. I love you, too. _)

Sam's strung-pearl teeth flashed, pulled back, and then glowed full force in the night.

(_You mean it? _)

(_Sure. I guess. _)

They'd fallen asleep, fingers twined together, an innocent tumble of arms and legs and stubborn tufts of hair.

The jukebox is what jolts Dean back to the present; some idiot kicks it, jangle of a steel-toe boot against the well-dented surface, and Bob Dylan graces the joint with his genius.

He shakes his head, trying to clear his vision, and sees double for an endless second before he manages to focus on the bar in front of him. There's a bowl of peanuts somewhere out there, and he slaps his hand around a little until he finds it.

Dean lets himself acknowledge, munching on peanut after salty peanut, that he _meant_ it all those years ago. He means it now, more than he ever has before and oh, God, what has he done? What must Sam think?

"Probably never wants to see me again," Dean blurts out, voice lost in the fragile-glass roar of the local saloon, sultry-voiced hookers and barrel-chested men vying for dominance around him.

Dean lets his face fall into his hands, misses, and feels his forehead connect with the bar-counter. It doesn't hurt, and his skin sticks as he rolls his head back and forth, back and forth, aimless and yearning suddenly for Sam to just _find_ him and tell him everything is all right.

He can't remember where the fuck the motel is.

He wonders how late the bar is open.

***

A trucker drives Dean home. He's so fucking hammered he can't even see straight, much less walk, and the dude stares at Dean's mouth the entire time. Dean's got one cab door open and a foot out before he stops thinking better of it and turns back around.

"Th' hell you lookin' at?" He mutters belligerently, and the trucker reaches out, pressing a nail into Dean's lower lip. Dean feels the blood rush into the dent when the hand is pulled away, and the other man's eyes are luminous and riveted. "Nev'mind." He mutters, before he almost falls out the side of the rig.

_Weak I'm weak and too fucking pretty to do this anymore. _

It takes a few minutes of serious concentration to actually find the room, and a few more to get the door unlocked, but when Dean finally meanders into the tiny space, Sam's not there.

Max, on the other hand.

Another thing about Max is that when he sleeps, his control slips. Dean can hear him snoring in the bathroom, porcelain tub padded with blankets from bygone motels, and he's sending out a psychic impression so strong that even Dean catches it – a flash-photo of a woman leaning over him, honey brown hair and sweet lips singing a lullaby. Max's mother.

"Aw, gawd," Dean hiccups to the empty room, feeling his poor, bloodshot eyes start to water as he remembers the way his own mom used to smooth his hair back at night, humming softly 'till he fell asleep. When did he get so fuckin' maudlin?

He's crying jerkily into a pillow before he can really stop himself, and passes out with a tear tracking down one cheek.

His dreams are fragmented and painful until they solidify into one of Sam, just Sam, not really doing anything. He's sitting in the passenger seat again, head turned to the window as they press blacktop heading east. Sam's always liked going that direction, says it feels less heavy on the East Coast, whatever that means.

Dean traces his brother's form with his eyes, and though he tries to cover it with Max-jealousy, a warm tingle starts in his gut that has nothing to do with their little hitchhiker and everything to do with the way Sam's legs are sprawled wide, his jeans hitched snug against his groin.

Then everything jumps and Dean's lying on his back, staring up at a blue, cloudless sky, and he feels a dagger of heavy lust slice through his belly when he realizes that Sam is there, too. In fact, Sam is lifting Dean's legs, tonguing his balls, fingers squeezing and rolling.

It's not cheating if you're asleep, if this is a dream.

He lets himself _go_ and goddamn if it doesn't feel good and right and so fucking sweet to rock up into Sam's soft mouth.

It's only when he opens his eyes to the dingy motel ceiling, the crack in the plaster mirroring the sudden crack in his chest, that he realizes the huge hands on his hips are real and his fingers are buried deep in floppy hair.

"Sammy –!" He gasps, but Sam ignores him, wraps his lips around the head of Dean's cock, and jacks Dean slowly with a spit-slick hand, all the while working Dean achingly gently with his circling tongue.

Dean feels the crack widening between his ribs until he's just burst open, laid out on the bed with his brother's breath scalding on his dick and an arm thrown over his eyes as he bites his lip and shudders out a mostly silent orgasm. When he runs a finger down the side of Sam's neck, feels the muscles contract on a swallow, Dean pulses again, the pleasure almost painful.

Sam pulls off, moves up Dean's strung-out body and pushes his leather jacket off his shoulders, effectively trapping his arms.

"You ran away," Sam's voice is matter of fact, pitched low and brooking no argument, "before you could finish."

"I–" Dean says, unsure of what Sam wants.

He can feel Sam hard and leaking in the groove of his hip. Dean's shirt is pushed half up his chest, his jeans around his knees, and when Sam shifts he hates himself for pressing up into the touch. He wants to tell Sam he already came in his goddamn pants, get away, get the _fuck_ away, but being on the road has starved him for human contact and the weight of Sam's body is perfection denied.

Dean turns his head to the side, trying to catch his breath, think clearly, anything, but Sam's insistent fingers turn him back and Sam kisses him hard and deep, eating him alive from the inside-out.

"You're so – god Dean, if you could have seen yourself," Sam whispers against his lips, and starts to move over Dean.

_Jesus I am too fucking drunk for this_, but he bends his back, tries to lift a leg to give Sam a tighter space to shove against, and Sam's come burns along his belly and side. _Ok_, Dean thinks, _I can_ really _wake up now_, but all Sam does is lick Dean's abdomen clean and ignore the way his brother's breathing turns to sniffles.

"Just returning the favor," Sam says, before he slouches onto the other bed and promptly falls asleep.

Dean's head aches, but his heart is worse. This is never what he wanted – sex as revenge, as a way to drive the stake deeper – but Sam's back is solid in the other bed, forbidding, and Dean forces himself to stay where he is and forget please God just forget.

Still, after that first night, it's like the floodgates are open; they can't stop even though it leaves Dean hollow and aching inside and Sam becomes more distant every day. It's like they're killing themselves in the best and worst possible way, a long, drawn out gut wound that bites and burns and burrows deeper than anything they ever expected.

At first it's just blowjobs and hand-jobs.

Every time Max is gone for more than a half-hour, or sleeping in the bathroom, Sam's on his knees or Dean's pushing Sam against the wall and they're both coming quick and dirty, mouths searching as they collapse against each other. They don't talk about it afterward; Dean gets the feeling that Sam didn't think it would be anything like this, either.

After a while there's almost a pattern to it: send Max out for supplies after a hunt, when their veins are burning with adrenaline and fear, fall on each other the second he's out the door.

Bite Sam like he's not starving for it, and maybe Sam will think this is nothing, just a release, because Dean hasn't had anyone for so long and neither has his brother.

Treat each time like the last time, because he never knows when one of them will snap and put a stop to all this buckets o' crazy. Dean figures it'll be any day now. Sam'll come to his senses, freak, and leave Dean high and dry just like he always has.

It won't go any farther. There's no reason for it. Dean's just a mouth and Sam's only human. There's nowhere for this to fit.

But then, well, just like some kind of cheesy romance novel, Dean almost gets killed.

After that, all bets are off.

***

Dean's always liked graveyards. They lead to serious contemplation, some think-time, and Dean needs to polish up the ole' light bulb as it is. Lately though, his mind wanders to Max, and tonight doesn't seem to be any different. Max, who still gets this _look _every time he watches Sam; Max, who couldn't hunt if someone handed him a pre-salted half-dead ghost on one silver platter and a lit match on another.

Dean didn't mind Max for about the first two weeks. Hell, the kid looked beat to pieces, and Dean never liked kicking puppies when there was bigger, badder shit out there. But man, after those first two weeks, it was like somebody hit a switch and Max-the-morbid became Dean's worst nightmare.

The thing about Max was that during his fortnight of moody oblivion, Dean could ignore him. Dean could act like Max wasn't even there and that it was still only Dean and Sammy riding rubber down the open road. He didn't talk, he didn't make eye contact, he didn't ask questions and best of all, he didn't have the hots for Sammy, because really? That's the only way to explain what's happening now.

Max was pale and haggard and half the time he looked ready to grab the nearest door and make a run for it, but goddamn if Sam didn't keep on him and on him until – pow – happy Max.

It wasn't fucking fair.

It_ isn't_ fucking fair because somewhere in there one and one added up to three and now Sam spends more time with Max than he does with Dean. It's like they're connected at the freaking psychic hip and Dean's left out in the rain.

Hard as he tries, Dean can't remember anything other than being Sam'n'Dean, brothers in arms, badass muthafuckas out to get the boogey man, but now.

He's an old model, outdated, obsolete.

_At least I can still kick zombie ass better'n both of 'em put together_, Dean thinks, eyes gleaming with savage satisfaction as he watches the splattered remains of a rotting head hit the concrete wall. The headless body starts to wander around aimlessly. Dean reloads his shotgun, gets a bead on a shuffling leg, and fires. The thing falls soundlessly, squirming like an obscene insect.

The smell of the match is sharp in the heavy air of the mausoleum, and Dean breathes it in gratefully, thinking of leaf-piles and marshmallows, of Sammy, the whites of his eyes catching the light of some half-dead campfire.

The corpse catches and burns like oil-soaked paper.

That's always been the good thing about zombies – old, dried-out bodies feed a fire like they're made for it.

Dean chuckles to himself, shaking his head and stepping outside to shout the all-clear.

"Dean! Dean, no!" Sam yells, and Dean's confused, his head swinging to the left and right the fuck _there_–

He goes down, decayed hand around his throat, and he hears himself start screaming as yellowed, tombstone teeth sink deep into the muscle of his shoulder.

The zombie is shaking its head vigorously, worrying at the chunk of flesh in its mouth like a dog, trying to tear muscle off the bone and oh God Dean can hear these awful_ sucking _sounds where he's starting to come loose. He can't even turn his head, and its wispy hair drags across his face like spider-webs, catching on his eyelashes, on the wet inside of his lip.

Dean's so deeply horrified at the dull scrape of bone against bone, so furious that he let his guard down when he _knows better_, that it takes him a second to see the top of its head is gone, sound of a gunshot reaching his ears about a millisecond later.

Dean freezes, mouth open, realizes the shattered remains of teeth are still grinding mindlessly at his shoulder, before he gathers his wits, grabs his knife, and cuts the fucker off of him.

Sam's there, a flurry of layered shirts and awkward legs, so pale that Dean can't see anything else – just Sammy, his Sammy, floating above him like the moon drawing the tides.

"Sammy… di'n know there were two…" Dean manages, before he has to close his eyes because Sam's face is shining down on him like a fricken' spotlight.

He feels something wet drip on his nose, thinks_ zombie blood_, never sees that Sam is crying.

The blood-loss pulls him under quickly after that, a dull roar in his ears, and Dean senses the shock-shivers starting as if they're earthquakes under his skin, a million miles away.

"Dean," Sam whispers, fingers molding Dean's cheek, thumb pressing into the hollow of his collarbone, but Dean can't hear him anymore.

***

Dean's conscious enough when they get back to the motel to hear Sam tell Max to get the hell out, and really, if he could actually move, he'd be smirking like he just won the lotto.

Sam heaves Dean onto a bed, murmuring soft and disjointed under his breath as he straightens Dean's torso and makes sure his shoulder is in a neutral position.

Dean gasps anyway; he can't help it. His shoulder, God, it feels like the zombie ripped his whole fucking_ arm_ off, and then some. Maybe pulled a lung out, too, just for good measure. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to think, it hurts to even speak.

Still, when Sam suddenly slaps some antibiotic on the wound, Dean manages.

"Jesus fucking _Christ_, Sam! Ow! Warn a guy, would you?"

"Sorry, Dean, I'm sorry," Sam says, and he sounds like he's having a hard time getting the words out.

Dean slowly turns his head, and catches a glimpse of Sam, red-eyed and tousled, looking like he's about to lose it.

"Sam," Dean can't stand seeing his brother like that; all he ever wanted was for Sam to be _happy_. It's the only thing that got him through Sam's first betrayal, his years at college; it's the only thing that kept him sane. "Sam, don't cry. I'm okay. I'm right here."

"Shut up," Sam says stubbornly, "You're hurting yourself." He blinks rapidly, smears an angry hand across his eyes, refuses to let any tears fall.

Dean realizes he hasn't had anyone cry for him in a long time. Reaching up with his good hand, Dean passes a thumb through the wetness under Sam's right eye and watches the last of the walls come tumbling down.

"Sam, my Sammy," Dean murmurs, because it's true but he's never truly wanted to claim him before.

Sam shakes his head again, presses fingers over Dean's mouth while he struggles one-handed with the gauze. His face is tight-lipped and splotchy and Dean's never seen anything or anyone so beautiful in his entire life.

Dean kisses the pads of Sam's fingers, lets his eyes droop closed and smiles against Sam's dirty skin.

Sam finishes wrapping his shoulder in silence, and it's only when he moves away, across the room, the distance leaping between them, that Dean speaks again.

"You should have told me."

Sam's back tightens, like a bird drawing in brittle wings, and Sam's voice is rough and tear-broken.

"Tell you what? About the zombie? I know I fucked up, man, and God you have no idea how so–"

"Nah, dumbass. Why didn't you tell me you friggen' cared?"

Sam turns his head, stares at the wall next to the bathroom door.

"Of course I care. Why would I need to tell you that, you're my brother."

"Look at me, Sam."

Sam's eyes are helpless and huge when they meet Dean's.

"Thank you. Thanks for being there when I needed you. That's all I can ask from you, man. And you pulled through, balls to the wall or not, did the best you could."

Sam jerks forward like a puppet, pulled by the threads of Dean's words, and when he falls to his hands and knees on the bed next to Dean, opens his mouth across Dean's own, Dean knows that Sam will never leave him again.

"I love you, goddammit. Don't – don't you ever fucking die." Sam bites into his brother's lips, and for a minute Sam's fear leaks into Dean's mind and he's staring at himself, shoulder a pulped, bloody mess, bleeding out in the mud and gravel in front of some nameless mausoleum.

"Hell should be so lucky," Dean says against the delicate skin behind Sam's ear, and Sam huffs out a laugh as he fits himself all along Dean's side.

Dean pushes his fingers into Sam's hair, cups Sam's skull against his chest, and lets himself just _need _Sam, lets it sink into his veins and sneak tendrils behind his eyes and through his chest, wind around his heart.

Sam sighs, palm pressed flat to Dean's ribs, and nuzzles Dean languidly, carefully.

Dean thinks about how this is the second time he can remember, the second time Sam said the L-word and meant it. Both stand sharp in Dean's mind, changing a childish confession into something real and immediate, tangible.

Eventually, Dean's arm falls asleep and he can't tell where he ends and Sam begins.

Max comes back at around four in the morning. Neither of the Winchester brothers moves a muscle, but they're both wide-awake.

***

As it turns out, Dean's quite capable of sitting in the car, window rolled down, blasting any living-dead with his magnum. Sam can go all mobile, agile, hostile between the tombstones, but Dean kind of likes just sitting back and letting a high-caliber slug do the work.

Suffice it to say, gunning down carnival targets on the flashy midway's got nothin' on exploding zombie heads, and Dean starts to actually enjoy himself. He's practiced shooting with one hand practically his whole life, so this is a cakewalk. He's barely even sweating when Sam comes panting back, hair flopped over tired eyes and one whole sleeve slimed with decayed guts.

"Man, this sucks. Next time, we're both sitting in the car."

"No way, dude. Zombie's know when to toddle off behind the nearest convenient headstone. What if it gets away?"

"All right, whatever. You have a point. I guess."

Sam is grousing, and Dean thinks it's adorable, but he'd rather have both his legs broken than say so.

"You better not make me sit on a towel like last time. I know this is your car, but goddammit I'm the one doing the hunting. A _little_ appreciation would be nice."

Dean chooses to ignore that as he leans across the front seat to push open the passenger door. Sam gets in and slouches down, knees banging the dashboard, and Dean lifts his good arm and brushes a stray curl of hair off Sam's temple. Sam stiffens, eyes questioning, before Dean turns away and viciously twists the ignition.

"You know I hate it that you're out there alone. It's my job to watch your back, and suddenly I can't do it? World's a funny place, man."

"I'm careful."

"Not as careful as I'd be."

Dean manages to just be cool when Sam's hand slips warm over his thigh – stays there. It's not sexual or uncomfortable, it's just _Sam_, and this is something Dean's had to get used to. Sam's much more tactile than Dean could ever force himself to be, but he's discovered that being on the receiving end stops being awkward if you just go with it.

"You know, Sam," Dean says conversationally, eager to change the topic, "that's eight zombies in five nights. You think somebody's resurrecting these bad boys?"

Sam's thumb swirls slowly, over and over, and Dean grits his teeth to ignore it. Sam may not mean it as a question, but Dean's body sure is reacting differently.

"Probably. Feel like tracking 'em down?"

"You know I do. What the fuck do I drag-ass all over the country for? Christ."

Sam chuckles low in his throat and God, does it go straight to Dean's cock. This is the problem with screwing Sam: now that Dean's got 24/7 access to someone just as hot and willing as he is, he can't seem to stop. The tires don't even squeal when he pulls over, and he's inordinately proud of that.

"Dean?" Sam murmurs, but he's so smug it's practically dripping off the word, sliding down Dean's spine thick and slow.

"Fucker," Dean says, before leaning into Sam and biting at his neck. Sam's hand slips inward and upward on Dean's thigh, and Dean can't spread his legs fast enough.

***

When they get back the motel room is quiet, TV gone static and muted, and Max is sprawled on a bed, eyes closed and mouth open. His breathing is barely audible, and when Dean looks over at Sam and sees the fond look soften his features, he can't help but feel a hot spike of jealousy.

"You wanna wake sleeping beauty? Or shall I?" Dean whispers, wanting Sam to look at _him_ like he does at Max.

"Nah, don't bother. I'll sleep in the tub. You take the other bed, Dean, and don't fuck up your shoulder."

"Are you kidding? You can't fit in that bathtub – I'll be prying your knees out of your chin come first light."

Sam laughs softly. "I'll be all right, honey, but I love it when you fret."

The mocking undertone is well disguised, but Dean hears it and narrows his eyes. "What are you saying?"

Sam's mouth pulls up at the corner, and Dean wants to lick his dimples, bury his nose in the still sweat-damp hair next to his ear, and never, ever give Sam up.

"Nothin'. I'm saying nothin', man. No need to go all defensive on me."

"Defensive–!" Dean starts, knowing Sam is doing this on purpose and not understanding why he's going along with it. Except. Anything that makes Sam bite his lip just like _that _when he's trying not to laugh is worth it.

"Sam?" Max's voice is gritty, and Sam turns so fast Dean's head spins.

The smile falls off his face like it's been shot.

"Max, buddy? It's okay – it's just us. We're back." Sam kneels next to the bed and takes Max's hand in his own, rubbing it gently.

Dean feels like an intruder, and he hates Max for doing this to him, for pushing him out of his own home, for pulling Sam out from under him like Dean was never there to begin with.

"Good," Max sighs, rolling his head towards Sam, and Sam smoothes his hair back.

Dean's in the bathroom with the door locked before he can see any more. He leans back against the cheap plywood, stares at his hurt face in the mirror, and wonders why he thought fucking Sam would make it any different.

Sam's knock vibrates through his head.

"Dean? Dean, you okay?"

"Fine."

"Okay… well, come out of there, I'm tired." Sam sounds confused, but he's still not getting it, that Dean's serious about all of this.

"Go to sleep, Sam."

"What? Are you – man, come on, you can't sleep in there!"

"Fucking watch me," Dean growls, and he steps away from the door and resolutely pulls back the shower curtain, making sure to rattle the rings so Sam knows exactly what he's doing.

"Dude! Your shoulder! Do you realize how much that's going to hurt in the morning after sleeping on hard-ass porcelain all night?"

Dean doesn't answer. Sam pounds on the door again.

"I swear to God, Dean, if you don't open this door I'm going to take it down."

Dean calmly throws a thin towel over the questionable brownish-red stain in the bottom of the tub.

"Come on, man, don't make me."

"Use the bed, Sam," Dean says, quite clearly, "and if you knock the door down, I'm going to feed you your own face."

There's silence from outside the door. Dean settles himself down, wrapping his leather jacket tighter around himself, and fuck, the cold walls of the tub are already bringing out a bone-deep ache in his shoulder.

Then.

"Why are you still doing this?"

"Shh, Sam, you'll wake Max."

"Is that why?"

"That's not what I said."

"You're an ass. And you're a fucking idiot," Sam hisses through the door, and Dean can tell he's clenching his fists.

He smirks and tries to settle more comfortably. Maybe if he turns on his side, gets his shoulder up in the air and away from the porcelain, it'll be better.

Ow.

Okay, no such luck.

He doesn't hear it when the lock clicks, but he's got his knife out and ready by the time he register's that Sam is now speaking to him from _inside _the bathroom. Damn Sam and his fucking telekinesis.

"Move over."

"What?" Dean cranes his neck, and when did Sam get so fucking _huge_? He's got a pillow in one hand, and blankets in the other. "Are you high? There's no way we'll both fit in here. _I _barely fit in here, and although you're not _that_ much taller than me… yeah."

"If you're not sleeping in the bed, I'm not sleeping in the bed."

"Oh, God, is this some more hippie-equality crap, Sam? You know I hate it when you go all flower-child on me, dammit."

"No, this is me saving you from yourself."

"Oh, how nice. No offense, but you're doing a really shitty job of it. Being crushed up against your stinky ass in a bathtub all night is not my idea of a good time."

"You brought this on yourself," Sam says, lifting a foot and godammit he's actually going to do it. He's getting in the tub.

Dean shoots to his feet, livid. "What the_ fuck_, Sam? Are you not hearing me? Did you get zombie bits lodged in your fucking _ears_ or something? You. Will. Not. _Fit_."

"Yeah I will, if you let me."

Dean is struck by Sam's quiet conviction, and suddenly they're talking about more than just being wedged in a bathtub together all night. Sam knows it, too, knows what he just said, and he's got his eyes fixed on Dean's surprised face.

"Dean, let's go to bed," Sam soothes, and grabs Dean's good shoulder, leading him back out into the motel room.

Max is already dozing, under the covers this time, but Dean is still too bowled over to do much more than a faint lip-curl in that direction. He lets Sam push him down onto the bed, take off his boots, his jacket, but when Sam's fingers move deftly to his pants, Dean shoos him away and does it himself.

Sam smiles, strips out of his own clothes, and pulls the blanket open.

"Sam–" Dean begins, but Sam shakes his head.

"We'll talk about it in the morning."

So Dean lets himself fall.

Sam is warm behind him, over him, and Dean curls his fingers around a bicep as Sam slowly licks his mouth open, tongue sweet and insistent over and around Dean's teeth. It takes Dean a while to figure out why he's feeling like this, why he's almost crying as he shudders under Sam's hands and tries to keep silent so Max doesn't wake up.

Dean's always been a little crooked inside, a little broken, the fracture something he's just lived with and never had the urge to mend because the insistent grate of his edges against each other has been the tune he fought and killed for all his life. But now, with Sam, Dean's changed.

He fights for _Sam _and he kills for _Sam_, and he's finally stopped denying the wound he's been carrying around in his heart long enough for it to heal.

Dean is - _not_ \- almost crying because he never knew what it felt like to be _fixed_, because he never knew what it felt like to have someone like he has Sam and how to be whole because of it.

"You son of a bitch," Dean breathes against Sam's skin, fingers tight around Sam's skull as Sam pulls a hand up Dean's thigh, moving it to cradle his hip.

"Finally figured something out, huh?" Sam manages, breathless and flushed, mouth wet with kisses.

"Yeah," Dean grits out, shoving his hips up and Sam's gasp is shaky and choked off. Dean loves it, loves Sam, loves his job, and even almost loves Max because he's _got_ this. This is _his_.

"But less talk, baby, more dick."

Sam lets out what can only be a giggle, before Dean bites at his lower lip insistently until neither of them cares about bathtubs or giggles or words anymore.

***

In retrospect, Dean should have seen it coming.

He thinks of it simply as the 'Winchester Curse.' Or, for easy Dean-life-reference, 'Why I Am Never Happy.' It's like every evil thing in the world waits in the wings for Dean to let his guard down and then, _whammo_. He'll be minding his own business one night – taking a break, napping, _masturbating_, goddamit – and some asshole pops out of no-fucking-where and goes for his jugular like a thing possessed.

Which, most often they are.

The point is, _it's not fair_, and exactly when everything seems to be going right – with Sam, his sex life, and all that other less important stuff – is when Max decides to _really_ make himself known.

The first hunt they take Max on goes horribly, ball-breakingly wrong, and _why_ is Dean not surprised? It's like the fucking new-age Titanic – sinking too fast to do anything about it, and all the lifeboats are screwed up.

The only explanation? Dean fucks up. Big time. He knows Max will never be able to pull off this hunting thing – too soft to begin with – but most of all Max actually gets attached to Sam, and anything Sam gets attached to the big-uglies just seem to go for like a cheap whore.

They're tracking down whatever raised those zombies, and Sam finds this reference to some crazy old guy named Barnabus T. Figg who lives next town over in a peeling, Victorian-era house.

"Dean."

Sam's really pulling out all the stops – big, liquid eyes, soft lips, and Dean can feel the trickles where his heart's melting. Really.

"Sam. I already said no."

"Dean, come on. He'll be able to help, I know it. I mean, he's essentially the one who's training _me_, you know."

"Do I have to write this down for you? Is that it? Do you need it phonetically?"

They're sitting in the local library, checking the background for this Figg person, and fuck-all if there isn't a damning amount of suspicious circs surrounding the guy.

Unfortunately, Dean already used up all his Barney jokes about an hour ago.

"Don't be like that, Dean. Max will pull his own weight; he's had to be self-sufficient almost his whole life, man – what makes you think he won't be able to do this?"

"Self-sufficient, my ass. At least he had a _house _to live in. Sam, just drop it. There's no way I'm worrying about him fucking something up."

"Dean," Sam wheedles, and Dean has to turn his glare up a notch to keep from screaming.

He jumps when he feels Sam's hand on his knee.

"Oh, no. Don't think you can pull that card on me." Dean blinks furiously, jerking his leg.

"Why not?" Sam asks, licking his lips. "I think, seeing as how we have sex almost every night, I've got a few ins to take advantage of."

"Not cool," Dean squeaks, trying to bat Sam's insistent fingers away.

"Aw, but Dean, I know how you like the risk. That little librarian sure looked like she could use a shock, and who knows when she'll come along, just shelving some books, and see–"

"All right! All right, fine!" Dean hisses, jumping up and pacing away from Sam. "But you have to watch him. And if he so much as _blinks_ at the wrong time, never again – do you understand me?"

Sam is grinning. "You're so cute when you think you're actually in charge. Seriously."

"The fuck?"

"Dean, at this point in our relationship I could probably make you do handstands in a pink tutu if I honestly wanted you to."

"Stop calling it that! 'Relationship', like we're fucking dating or something, and if you think that then you need to stop dreaming."

"Whatever, man. Just remember this conversation when Max saves your sorry ass." Sam laughs and picks up the books he wants.

"You mean 'manipulation'," Dean mutters grumpily, deliberately cutting Sam off because, hey, older brother privilege in your _face_, Sammy.

Sam pinches Dean's ass in front of the librarian's desk while they're checking out.

That, right there – that was Dean's lesson number one: Never let a piece of ass – damn fine though it may be – get in the way of good judgment and common fucking sense.

***

Lesson two: Never let the new guy go first. It's not completely his fault, because somehow in the shuffle he lost his place on Figg's porch and Max took it and then the door opened and a whole lot of shit hit the fan at once.

Figg ends up not being so old, or so human, and for the second it takes before manure starts flying Dean almost starts laughing hysterically because the thing standing in front of them is fucking _purple_, and he just knows when it turns around he'll see green spots and a dinosaur tail.

"Barney?" Dean says, and then it reaches forward, _past _Max, and grabs Sam around the neck.

"You'll do," Barney says calmly, like he's picking out an orange at the supermarket, before he drags Sam inside and slams the door on Sam's frantic yell of 'Dean!'.

Dean is shocked, poleaxed, nailed to the spot, and all he can think is that, _if I were in front, this wouldn't have happened_. Max seems just as astonished, and when he turns saucer-eyes to Dean and opens his mouth, he never even sees the punch coming.

He goes down like a sack of potatoes, and Dean really does feel kind of bad afterwards, but fuck that because Barney took his _brother_ and he didn't see any flowers or rainbows or little kids inside that house.

"Get up," he says, and then throws himself at the nearest window.

It breaks easily under the butt of his gun, and he's got a leg inside before he's got a chance to think. Then he falls right back out when an especially disgusting zombie looms up in front of him. The stench overwhelms him, and he gags as he staggers backwards. Max is just getting up, slowly and painfully, when Dean raises the gun again and blows the zombie's toothless grin wide open.

"Max, godammit, get your ass over here."

"You punched me," Max says, and oh yeah he's definitely not functioning at one hundred percent. He's staring at the blood coating his hands and the front of his shirt.

"I punched you because you deserved it. Get the fuck over here!"

Max does.

The zombie's scrabbled away from the window, and Dean can hear it off to the left, bumping into something again and again like a wind-up toy with nowhere to go.

"Max, dude, look at me."

Max does, but his eyes are swimming and lost. Dean sighs, and smacks him upside the head. Max's pupils focus again, darting around, and he's clearly just come back from whatever trip he went on.

"Listen to me. I'm going to go in first, okay? And you're going to watch. My. Back. Think you can do that?"

"What?"

Dean's close to cold-cocking Max and going in there his goddamned self, but he needs back-up. Since Sam returned they've worked as a team, and he knows if he goes in there alone he'll fuck something up and get himself killed because he's not used to hunting by himself anymore.

"You're going to follow me. If you see anything, yell, and I'll shoot it. Or, better yet, use that mighty brain of yours and pop it, see if I care. Just do _something _so I know what's going on."

Max looks blank again, and Dean raises his hand threateningly.

"Okay! Okay, fine," Max cries.

Dean turns back to the window, leaps over the sill, and levels his gun for a quick scan of the room. It's empty of furniture, and the headless zombie has listed uselessly to the side in the corner, legs still moving but not really going anywhere. Dean squints, trying to see into the darkened hallway beyond, and wonders briefly why the fuck they always do these things at night.

He hears Max slide awkwardly through the window behind him, and says without turning around, "Your gun ready?

"Yeah, I – I think so."

"Better hope to God your arm doesn't shake," Dean says, before taking a step forward towards the hall.

He feels Max's whistling, painful breath behind him, and figures he's probably on the edge of a panic attack just from seeing a corpse up and kicking. Dean presses himself up against the wall. Max does the same behind him. The wallpaper is musty and torn right next to Dean's face, bulbous flowers faded to blood-splotch patterns.

The hallway is empty when Dean swings out into it, and he jerks his head for Max to follow.

"Remember what I said, man. If you see anything, don't ask, just shoot. Or pop. Whatever."

Max is silent, and Dean peers down the narrow passage next to the stairs. Max is staring into the room across the way, the 'library' probably, and Dean's trusting him a whole hell of a lot to not freeze up if he sees something.

A soft sound above his head is the only thing that saves him, and he shoves backwards into Max, pushing him out of the way as something straight out of Sam's nightmares drops at their feet.

_Thank God_, is all Dean can think,_ thank God I heard that, or we'd be dead_, because he's never seen so many teeth in one place in his life. It's black and shifting on the floor, drawing itself up to full height, in no hurry because it's bigger and badder than anything Dean thought he'd be facing in here.

This thing is most definitely _not_ a zombie, and without research, he has no fucking idea how to kill it before it takes his head off like some kind of messed up video game.

"Dean?" Max squeaks, and Dean shuffles him back farther, behind his body, because Max is just a _kid_ and Dean's really a good guy at heart.

"Max," Dean says, "I'll distract it while you run. Think you can do that, man? Just go back to the window we came in and get the hell out, okay?" He tries to make his voice soothing, gentle, because this is the first true monster Max's ever seen, no matter how much his dad and his uncle seemed like the end-all be-all.

But Max is frozen, and more and more teeth keep appearing and bristling as it sways back and forth in front of them, clawed toes digging into the rotted wood of the floor.

Dean is actually shocked. He's seen demons before, but this is some hardcore shit right here.

That's when Max seems to snap back to himself.

"Move, Dean."

"Are you fucking crazy?" Dean asks. He's got his gun aimed, and maybe it'll work if he goes for that little dent way up there on the top of its head. That might be an eye, though fuck knows where the other one is.

"Just move, Dean, please."

"Max, Sam will kill me if I let you die."

"I know," Max says then pushes Dean aside. He holds his hand out and the thing goes rigid, muscles rippling along its flank.

"Go upstairs," Max grinds out, his forehead creased with concentration. "I've got this."

Dean can feel his mouth hanging open.

"You got this? You _got _this? Dude, I don't know if you've actually_ looked _at–"

"Shut the fuck up and do it. It's not as strong as it looks."

"I oughta kick your psychic ass."

"_Go_!"

Dean goes. He doesn't hear any crashing and burning from the hallway while he does, so he guesses Max must be all right. He just hopes there're no zombies around to break Max's concentration, because if Jaws gets loose then they're both dead.

Upstairs the hallway is just as gloomy, closed doors lining it on all sides. Dean sighs. This is the part he really hates: kicking in each door, clearing the room, rinse, repeat – it's enough to drive a guy bat-shit. That is, until he sees a light under the farthest door.

Maybe it's a trap, but Dean doesn't have time to worry. His boot connects and splinters the wood before he can regret it, and inside there's –!

Nothing. A lamp, burning, but nothing else. Dean lets out a sob of dismay, whirls for the door, and runs out into the hall again just in time to hear a fucking sonic boom from downstairs. He almost falls down the steps, gun first, only to see Max standing there, trembling, and nothing else.

"What the hell just happened?"

"I don't know, I didn't do anything. I was just holding it and it – it went away."

"Went away? What's that supposed to mean? Went away as in _escaped_?" Dean immediately cranes his neck upward, scanning the ceiling and the carved-out cavern of the stairs.

"No, no it's gone. I can't feel it." Max is looking washed out and pale again. He turns slowly to Dean, who's still got one eye on the chandelier and another one on the stairs. "I can't feel Sam either, Dean."

Dean doesn't want to hear it, even though he already knows. "Shut up."

"Dean–"

"I said shut up!"

Dean kills two more zombies before he leaves, dragging Max around corners and down stairwells, from the basement to the attic, before he accepts what Max has been telling him all along.

Sam is just _gone_ – and Dean has no clue where.

***

It made sense when Sam suggested it – two psychics are better than one, ha-ha – but Dean knows he should have listened to his goddamned gut and squashed that hope before Sam put it in Max's eyes. Too late now, anyway.

"I can't sense him, Dean," Max moans. His eyes are gray and old when he looks away.

"I don't care, he's not dead," Dean hisses, gripping the wheel like he'll fly apart if he lets go. He probably will.

"No, you don't understand. I can't _sense_ him, in my brain. That only means one thing–"

"If you don't shut the goddamn hell up right now, I'm rolling down the window and tossing you out. He's. Not. Dead."

"You're not psychic!" Max wavers, voice rough.

"You're not his brother," Dean shoots back, running a red light, and the lurid crimson glow turns Max's mouth into a black "O" of grief. "I would know if he were dead, which he's not."

"Dean–"

"Max, you've been giving me problems since day one. Would you please just let me do my friggen' _job_?"

Max zips up, shuts down in the passenger seat, dropping into an almost-trance of sniffles and hiccups. Dean ignores him with a vengeance, hand on the gearshift, foot on the gas.

He's not psychic, not like Sam and Maxine. He can't float objects to him, he can't have visions, read minds, milk cows at twenty paces, whatever-the-fuck they do, but he's always had this little ball of warmth at the back of his brain that signifies _Sam_.

It's still pulsing on the edge of his consciousness, sending out dull waves of pain and fear from wherever Sam is, but where there's a will, there's a way – and like they say, it ain't over 'till the fat lady sings.

Sam's still alive. All Dean has to do is find him. Then kill that damn fat lady.

***

Dean's rusty when it comes to teen angst that doesn't involve Sam, so the first thing he does is try to ignore it – put it in a little box and shove it away. Close your eyes long enough and everything'll leave you alone, right? Well, wrong. But Dean's sure as hell gonna give it a try because Max is cramping his style enough as it is.

Two days in – two days without Sam's stupid, floppy hair and big, lumberjack feet – and Dean usually leaves Max at the motel when he goes out now. He can't take the constant mourning; Max's face is always tear-blurred, like a chronic disease, and whether that's because Max is crying or Dean is Dean doesn't want to know. He's so fucking close to shattering that living in this constant state of denial is better than letting himself feel, even for a second.

If anything does sink in, there's a can of gasoline waiting for the Impala's last hurrah and a gun in the trunk with his name on it. For now, Dean's left clinging to Sam's presence in all the old, stupid ways – the 'left me for college' ways.

Six days in, he doesn't let Max touch Sam's clothes or guns; ten days in, he wakes up and stumbles out and finds that he's wearing one of Sam's ratty old T-shirts under his leather; fourteen days in and he's running his fingers over the keys of Sam's laptop, hissing like a cat when Max tries to come near, and drinking in Sam's words through old e-mails, trying to hear Sam in his head.

Dean clings because maybe.

Maybe if he lives and breathes Sam even more than when they were together, he'll be able to _use_ the goddamn psychic link in his brain for something more than just feeling Sam's confusion and helplessness – his sorrow.

Maybe, if he walks Sam's walk and talks Sam's talk, he'll suddenly be able to_ find _Sam instead of running in circles banging his head against the wall.

Maybe if he's drunk enough, sorry enough, pissed off enough, he'll wake up one morning and pull Sam's location out of his brain like a magician with a rabbit and a hat and something to prove.

They've stayed in town a month, paralyzed at the same motel because what if Sam just meanders back in one evening – slow grin, crinkled eyes and a question on his tongue – and they're not _there_? That, more than anything, is eating Dean up inside like the worst kind of demonic pest. He wants to move because _Sam_, but he wants to stay because_ here_ – here is where Sam was last, and if Dean leaves here, he's leaving a part of himself behind so vital he'll bleed out within a week.

Dad's contacts haven't been any help either, because Dean's rung every one of 'em four times over and it never changes.

– _gone, has he? Where were you again, son? What's the name?_

– shit man, I'm sorry to hear that. You called your dad yet?

– nothing on my end, I hope he's all right. Heard from John?

– sensed nothing yet, and the next full moon's not for a while – I'd need that to do a full-on scrying.

Empty promises, empty relief.

Sometimes after Max is asleep, Dean sits in the car at night for hours, bottle of Jack in one hand, the other tracing the worn spot on the dash where Sam's knees always rub. He muses there in the dark, gun oil and car oil and baked vinyl smells surrounding him, that it's like being turned inside out when he thinks of the way Sam's trick knee adds a funny slant to his run. Inside out when he thinks of the way Sam never sneaks into a movie he hasn't paid for, even though he bought the ticket with a sham credit card.

For the third time in his life, Dean has to accept the fact that you never _know _what you really need until it's cut right the fuck out of you. Mom, Dad – he made it through those because he had _Sam_. Nobody can save him from himself this time; nobody can stop him from just getting in the car and driving – fucking _driving_ – until the gas runs out, the water dries up and he's nowhere fast and gone to ground.

Perversely, in the end it's Max who keeps him alive – Max, who Dean can't stand the sight of. Dean knows that Sam had something with Max – be it friendship or father-son or freaking boy-and-his-dog – Sam _had _something. Sam would gladly string Dean up if anything happened to Max, so Dean stays alive for Max for Sam, and if that's a little fucked up, well, his whole life's a little fucked up.

He's seen worse reasons to keep on truckin'.

***

When the break comes, it's actually something of a surprise because Dean is doing something he's done millions of times before.

"Dean, why are we still here."

They're both sitting in the motel room, Dean stiff-backed at the desk, facing away from Max. Max is curled on a bed, staring at the wall, hands clasped between his thighs.

Dean doesn't answer.

Five minutes later, Max says, "Dean," and Dean turns his head a fraction. "He's not coming back," Max's voice rises, plaintive, "why can't you just accept that and move on?"

"Why can't you accept he's not dead?" Dean bites off the words. He's got Sam's laptop in front of him, and he's running through the favorites folders again and again, numbing and mindless, when all of a sudden, _there_.

Dean blinks.

Maxine the psychic wonder sits up straighter – Dean can hear his feet rustling against the sheets.

"Dean?"

In Sam's favorites list – which Dean has been lifelessly clicking through for weeks – is an entry labeled 'Figg'. Dean doesn't know if he wants to laugh, cry, or beat the shit out of something – preferably Sam, though Max is looking pretty goddamned tempting.

"Well, fuck me," he breathes, and selects the link. _Why didn't I notice this before? _

Dean barely skims the first line before it clicks into place: isolated incidents, small area severely affected, zombie henchmen, Sam's kidnapping – hell, Sam's probably the last psychic link the bastard needs to shoot the shit with Mr. Fire-and-Brimstone himself.

"Dean, what? You got something?"

Dean jumps as Max's breath hits his neck, but it's like he's _alive_ again after all this time in limbo, like there's a straight line between point A and point B and he knows how to get there.

"Does the pope shit in the woods? Jesus yes." Dean twists in his chair, looking up at Max and my God he's smirking at the kid for the first time in ages. "Our friend, Barney? Well, seems he had a little falling-out with the man in red."

Max looks blank and Dean vows to maroon his sorry ass at the first gas station they hit after Dean's got his Sammy back.

"It's a demon," Dean says, going slowly – if Max is all he's got to guard his ass, he's gonna make damn sure Max knows what he's up against, "who's been banished to the mortal realm by the devil. See, when that happens, the only way back in is to find favor with Lucifer, and to do that? Some pretty bad ass shit needs to go down."

Max opens his mouth, eyebrows drawing together, but then he sees the look in Dean's eyes and changes his mind.

"Maybe you could explain in the car."

"Thatta boy!" Dean says, jumping up and slapping Max on the back. "But first, I gotta make a call." Dean can already see a number in the back of his mind, buried between the pages of Dad's journal.

"Um," Max tries, but Dean's across the room before the aftershave settles, riffling through his duffle like a kid at a Christmas party, his hands swift and sure.

Dean lets out a bark of triumph when he finds the number and stabs his finger at his phone jerkily, like he's on some sort of high. Max watches silently.

Dean doesn't introduce himself when the phone's picked up on the fourth ring.

"I've got a problem."

"What kind of problem?"

Feminine voice, suspicious. There's a low hum crawling through the receiver that Dean can't quite ignore.

"Figg," Dean growls out. Just saying the name is _killing_ him because the bastard has Sam and he wants so bad to rip its heart out with his bare fucking hands.

"Ah, Figg. Damn. I was hoping we wouldn't have to deal with that one," the woman says, and Dean can hear papers rustling. "You see, these things don't usually cause trouble. Too demoralized, you understand. We don't like to kill them unless it's absolutely necessary."

"Trust me, it's fucking necessary," Dean spits.

"Didn't say it wasn't," she replies blithely. "Location?"

Dean gives her a place, she gives him a name, and then says, "What'd he do? I'd really rather not annihilate ol' Barney unless he really–"

"Fuck you," Dean says calmly, and thumbs the button to end the call. _ People can be so goddamn inconsiderate sometimes_, he muses, turning to Max again.

"You ready?"

Max points to his bag, still packed next to his bed.

"Then let's blow this town. I got some people to see, and then we're going to get you tracking."

"Tracking?" Max says, confused, "I thought you said I couldn't track a hooker on a street corner."

Dean looks sheepish, "Well, I–"

"Those were your exact words, genius," Max cuts him off, but he's smiling and Dean thinks, _This is the Max I want. _

"I'm sure you'll get better with practice," Dean's grinning now, too, "and after this job? I promise I'll help you out with those hookers. Man shouldn't be without, after all."

Max laughs, and Dean didn't know how good it would be to hear it.

***

Dean calls John Winchester as they pull out of the parking lot. He gets voicemail, as usual, and the message he leaves goes something like this: "I know I haven't called in a while, but I just thought I should let you know. Sam's been kidnapped by a demon trying to get back into hell, and it's probably because it needs a human sacrifice_ and _a burst of psychic energy which means Sam's a twofer. Call back if you care, sir, but Dad… I'm really beginning to think you don't."

The click of his phone closing is sweet.

Dean glances over at Max and says, "What? You have daddy issues, I know you do, so don't give _me _the hairy eyeball."

Max looks shocked that Dean would mention Max's abuser so callously. "I wasn't–"

"Yeah, yeah kid, I know," Dean actually looks contrite, and Max smiles again as Dean walks the Impala up to seventy on the small highway. "We have to go back to the house, get you a scent to track. Or a brain wave – whatever the hell you need, and then I've gotta swing by the hardware store."

"What for?"

"Gotta see a man about a demon." Dean's grin is feral and Max leans back in his seat slowly, satisfied.

"Right on."

They reach where the house should be about twenty minutes later, but the Impala crawls to a halt in front of a burned out hulk.

"What the _fuck_?" Dean exclaims, the corners of his eyes wrinkle up as he squints at the remains. "Did we do that?"

"I don't think so," Max replies, but Dean's already out of the car and rounding the hood.

He slaps a palm to Max's window, "Come on, up. I need you to brain massage this place, see if we got it wrong somehow – the wrong house?" Dean sounds incredulous because he_ knows _it can't be the wrong house. Sure it's been a month, but Dean's got a head for locations and names and this is where that house _was_. This is where he lost _Sam_. There's no way he'd forget that.

Max obediently follows Dean into the remains, stepping over charred floorboards and twisted light fixtures. The blurred glitter of melted glass winks at them from all sides. Max stops before he's gone more than five feet.

"Dean, it's no good. Somebody salted the place before they burned it. I'm not picking up anything."

Dean looks at Max, eyebrows raised. "You're serious? Salt works like that with you?"

Max nods. Dean lets out a small huff of frustration, plunging his fingers into his hair and staring off at the blackened remains of the chimney.

"Why didn't Sam ever mention that?"

Max shrugs. "It's different for everyone. Psychic abilities vary just like eye color or physical build."

"All right, professor, so how are you gonna track this thing? Because that was kind of important to my master plan."

Max wrinkles his forehead, looking down. "I don't know."

Dean whirls on one foot and stomps away because he knows if he stays there one more second he's going to fucking lose it and deck someone – someone like Max.

He can hear Max shuffling around behind him, moving back and forth, but he's too lost in his own anger to pay attention. What now? What the fuck now? Dean didn't realize how much hope he'd tacked on Max until here they are, ground zero, Max can't deliver and he's got no other way to follow Barney because it's not like the guy leaves a goddamn scent. That's the problem with demons – too goddamn smart for their own good. Dean's always wondered why the minions of evil can't just be _stupid_ like they are in the movies, bumbling around with a broken bottle and a chip on their shoulder until the shining soldier of justice comes along and sets the world to right.

It's never been like that and even though he learned as a kid not to trust legends too far, never to take them literally, Dean's still a little tore up about that – the fact that the entirety of civilization is lying to him, denying his very existence, because he doesn't always win.

"Hey! Hey, I – I got something! Dean! Dean, I got something!"

Dean's by Max's side so fast he can't remember moving.

"What? What is it?"

Max is in the growth of trees off to the side of the house. They're singed, but green leaves are still clinging and Dean can tell that they weren't part of the original burn target. Max is holding up something that looks completely ridiculous: the number 6, black and blobby against the white background of a small tile. Dean vaguely remembers seeing it next to the door with its cohorts, before Barney said hello.

"That? You're getting a reading off of _that_?"

Max beams, his face upturned and vibrant. "Yup!"

Dean shakes his head, turning to hide the upward slant of his mouth. He'd vowed he'd never like Max, but goddamn if the kid isn't punching a way into Dean's heart with his excited hands and somber eyes.

***

Dean comes out of the hardware store to find Max hunched over the number tile in the front seat, his fingers clenched tight and fierce around it and his eyes squeezed closed. Dean doesn't want to disturb him, so he leans against a light post and watches idly, jiggling the paper bag he's carrying against his thigh.

Max opens his eyes suddenly, looks at Dean, smiles, and then his head jerks back, his mouth opens, and he starts to shake himself apart.

Dean's frozen for a second, shocked, but then he dives for the door, wrenches it open, and pulls Max out. He cradles him between his squatting legs, his hands carefully holding Max's head up. Max's eyes are rolled back to the whites, scary and bloodshot around the edges, and Dean starts to truly panic when Max makes a choking sound and drops the tile. It breaks into two pieces on the pavement.

"Max! Max, man, what–? Come back to me, man! Snap out of it!"

Dean wraps his arms tighter around Max, cradles Max's head against his shoulder and concentrates on the gasping breaths beating against the crook of his neck. Are they slowing down? Dean clamps one hand tight on the back of Max's skull, ignoring the staring woman who walks by, pushing a baby carriage, and starts to croon softly in Max's ear.

"Dean?" Max's voice, weak, and he's still shuddering against Dean like he's got hypothermia.

"I'm here, I'm here Max. Don't worry, I got you, I'm right here," Dean murmurs, and has a sickening flashback to Sam's nightmares.

It comes to him that Max probably just had a vision and that's how his body reacts. He remembers that Sam always liked contact after his visions – a hand on his wrist, an arm around his shoulders – so he keeps on holding Max even though his knees are screaming and he doesn't even _like _the kid.

Max's arms snake around his back and he's crying on Dean's shoulder, wetting the collar of his shirt and making the leather slippery and warm, like blood.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I didn't – I'm sorry," Max moans, and Dean shushes him and just holds him – holds him up holds him together – in the lee of the car and the open door.

A few minutes later Dean ventures, "You had a vision."

"Yeah. I guess I was concentrating too hard. I mean, they've never – I've never–"

He's starting to tremble again like the memory is too much, so Dean shakes his head and hauls Max back up so he's sitting in the seat, crouches in front of him.

"Listen, it's cool. Sam had those all the time. His were like headaches, you know? Really bad ones."

"I've never done that before," Max whispers, and he's pale and scared and Dean's heart goes out to him because Max never asked for _this_. Sure, he asked to go with them, but he didn't ask to be dragged along on a demon hunt – he didn't ask to be stuck with Dean, the lesser brother in his eyes, while Sam was off being tortured or killed or God knew what.

Dean's mind neatly sidesteps that train of thought and he leans forward, squeezing Max's knee. "I don't mean to be a bitch about it, but it's probably going to happen again. Maybe a lot."

Max sighs, but he looks resigned. Dean moves to take his hand away, but Max presses it back to his knee. "Just… wait a second. Okay?"

"Okay," Dean agrees and shifts, trying to ease the strain on his joints. "What did you see?"

"I saw," Max pauses, looks down and licks his lips, and then meets Dean's eyes again. "I saw mountains. West, Dean. Montana."

Dean snorts, "Go west young man, go west, huh?"

Max nods. Some of the color is back in his cheeks, but Dean figures he's always a little pasty and gives Max's knee one last pat before creaking to his feet. _God, don't tell me I'm getting too_ old _for this, too_.

"You gonna be okay?"

Max nods, doesn't meet Dean's eyes. Dean notices the broken number tile on the pavement, points to it. "Will that still work?"

"No, it's told me all it absorbed."

"Sweet. Let's roll, then," Dean says, and ambles around to the driver's side. He sets the paper bag on the seat next to him and lightly smacks Max's hand when he tries to reach for it. "No peeking! Anyway, you should already know what's in it, right?"

"Not if I don't touch it."

"Good. Hands off, grabby."

Max laughs, and Dean gears his baby up and out and away, his heart leaping into his throat because finally, finally, a purpose and a partner again.

***

Dean's been to Montana once or twice, and overall it's one of what Sam and Dean like to call "The Good Ones." States that mind their own business, don't randomly regurgitate supernatural beasties every full moon - states where people don't disappear for no good reason. Montana's a state of mountains and mountain goats and every now and then a troll or two, but overall Montana is the best of The Good Ones and Dean is kind of sad that from now on it will forever have a black mark next to its name in his mind.

Max stares out the window in awe, like he's never seen these kind of monuments to age and longevity before, and Dean recognizes the sad cast to Max's jaw as a realization that Dean had long ago: human beings are nothing – vulnerable, changeable, fickle and short-lived – and the soaring rocks and craggy heights, these are the things that last and matter.

"Cool, huh," Dean says, for lack of anything better.

"Yeah," Max murmurs, and he slides a slow finger along the bottom of his window, leaving a quick-fading smear.

Dean always rides with his window open, so he never leaves a mark.

They stop at a small motel, a large moose emblazoned on the fading wooden road sign, and Dean pays for two nights at the check-in desk, anticipatory and fearful all at once.

_What if what if what if. Sam_.

Max appears disturbingly calm.

The room is like a thousand others, faded imitation of home and life, the comforters on the twin beds grayed with years and washings and the mirror on the wall slightly warped, giving Dean a skewed, aged look that he doesn't like at all. He turns away and sets his duffle on the bed closest to the door, ignores the dusty cloud that drifts upwards through the slant of sunshine stabbing into the gloom.

"I'm gonna head out, canvas the area," Dean says briskly, mind snap-snapping along, jumping from possibility to possibility – who does he know in the area, has anything happened here in the past. He doesn't have a head for facts like Sam, but he knows dates and he knows faces and that always got him by before. He's got a hand on the doorknob when Max clears his throat.

"Yeah?"

"Dean, I – can I come with you? Please? I promise, I'll stay in the car, whatever, I just don't want to sit here and feel like I'm doing nothing."

The emphatic 'no' dies on Dean's lips, and he squints at Max, taking in the strained eyes, the stretched-thin skin and the nervous hands. Dean can remember a time when he was twelve or thirteen – right before his father started to let him go on hunts – when he felt the same way. It was a helpless, burrowing feeling that settled deep under your collarbone and Dean had never liked that at all.

"Kid, I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks if you fuck anything up."

"I know. You've done it before."

Max's hand strays unconsciously to rub his nose and Dean remembers punching him in the _face_, feels a frisson of guilt. Max is new to this, Max didn't want this, didn't know anything about _anything _–

"Okay. Come on, get your coat. I just wanna check if there's anyone in the area who's down with this arcane stuff. I guess it wouldn't hurt for you to sniff around with that brain of yours."

Dean recognizes the look in Max's eyes, and now he knows what his father felt like the first time – apprehensive, proud, scared, and yeah, excited, because this is new blood, new spirit, new dedication. It's kind of like leaving a legacy.

They walk.

The local hardware store, usually good for a few tools or tips, is closed. Dean checks his watch. Three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon? Weird.

The next stop is the grocery store, and when Max quirks an eyebrow questioningly Dean says, "Man's gotta eat," before loading up on canned food and bagged food and every preservative in the place.

"This seems like pointless stalling," Max murmurs, and Dean flashes him a look.

Maybe he is stalling, but maybe it's because he's not sure where to go and he doesn't want Max to know. See, if Max weren't here, he could fumble around to his heart's content and not worry about looking like an idiot. With Max breathing down his neck it's like everything has to have a _reason_, and that's just not how Dean works. Frankly, it sucks out loud.

The third spot Dean chooses is predictable, an antique store that has an aura of true antiquity around it with a wrinkled, grandmotherly owner wrapped up in a shawl behind the counter. Places like these have things – artifacts, books, tools of the trade, all usually Sammy's area – but they also have people, and Dean is in his element. He saunters up to the desk and opens his mouth.

"Dean Winchester. You're late."

Dean snaps his jaw shut, feeling his eyes go big. "Pardon?"

_Hey. Hey, she knows my name_. His mind is working frantically, trying to remember if he's been here before, fucked her daughter, jilted her niece, something that would make her want to hurt him.

"You're late, I said," her eyes flicker behind him to where Max, loaded down with grocery bags, is poking cautiously at the stuffed figure of a bear, looming dead and eight feet high, dusty glass eyes fixed on the door like it wants _out out out. _ "And you brought a friend, I see."

"Yeah, well. Friend's a little bit strong, but yeah, I brought him." Dean pauses, thinking, and then says, "Mind telling me how you know my name? Don't get me wrong, it's flattering, but I'm kind of on a hunt here and I got nothin' against old ladies so I really don't want to have to hurt you."

Her mouth draws up at the corner, pushing creases into new canyons and valleys, and the scar that mars the underside of her left eye suddenly mesmerizes Dean. It disrupts the lines of wrinkles, moving everything over a few millimeters, and hell, this baby's _recent. _

She drops him a slow wink and says, "I'm shaking in my slippers."

She's got something tattooed on her eyelid, something black and shifting that Dean can't quite get a fix on. Dean's gut twists when he realizes that he's really fucking freaked out.

"But let's not get testy. I have something for you." She turns around to shuffle into the back room.

The crazy urge to laugh strikes Dean hard in the chest when he sees that she was standing the whole time, not sitting, and she's really just that short. Max comes up behind him and touches his elbow.

"What's going on?"

"She's got something for me," Dean says, eyes fixed on the heavy curtain that mostly blocks off the back room. He can see something through there, the edge of a box and what's humped ominously out of it, fleshy and –

"Creepy," Max says, disrupting Dean's train of thought, and then he blinks and she's pushing back through the curtain, a small, cloth-wrapped package in her hand. She holds it out to Dean and he takes it carefully, doesn't let their fingers touch.

"That should help you," She smiles again, shifts the shawl on her shoulders and the fringe looks uncomfortably like hair. "Come again, Dean."

_Christ, there are some goddamn freaky people in Montana_

"You bet," Dean says, simultaneously thinking, _ Not on your life, scary lady, _ before he grabs Max by the shoulder and propels them out of the store. He makes sure they're at least two blocks away before he stops, plops down on a bus-stop bench and sighs with relief.

"Man, sometimes I hate this job."

Max settles next to Dean, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. "I didn't get any readings off her."

Dean doesn't look at Max, stares across the street at a seemingly deserted gas station. "What's that mean?"

"It wasn't like she was blocking her thoughts, either. It was just like she didn't have any. Are you sure we can trust her?"

"Nope," Dean says simply, and leaves it at that.

Max nods next to him, and then sighs and leans back against the bench.

"Gonna open your package?"

"Usually I save that for the ladies, princess," Dean says, and Max looks startled next to Dean before he cracks up, hiding his smiling mouth behind his hand.

***

Back at the motel Dean pulls the paper bag out of his duffel and tosses it on the bed. He lays the cloth-wrapped bundle next to it, and stares at them both thoughtfully, side-by-side, two of a kind, Sam and Dean. And Max. Because Max saunters over, reaches out before Dean can stop him and lays the tip of his index finger against the cloth and twine.

He pulls back with a sharp gasp. "Holy crap, that's powerful."

"Eh?" Dean says intelligently, wishing he knew more about this stuff and trying desperately not to focus on the ball of _Sam_ in his mind and how it's gotten quieter the past few days.

"It's just… it feels big. It's big magic, whatever it is."

Dean shrugs, runs his tongue over his teeth, and then reaches for it. The cloth comes away easy in his hands and he's holding an old pocket watch, tarnished silver with curlicues of gold up the sides and over the closed face. There's an engraving, but the words seem to wriggle and twist, constantly changing, until they settle in sharp relief, _Samuel Winchester_. Dean feels his heart speed up, his palms get sweaty, and he doesn't want to open the clock, doesn't want to see what time the hands say because he suddenly knows that this is Sam's life in his fingers, his _life_ – or how much he's got left of it.

"Is that…" Max whispers, afraid to say it, and that gives Dean the strength.

He flips open the lid and stares at the numbers. It's normal, a normal clock, one, two, three and so on, but the number twelve is bleeding, small, viscous dribbles of red sliding slowly down the ivory clock-face, and Dean snaps it shut again.

"We have twelve hours to find Sam," he says emptily, because he thought he had time – more time, anyway – and what has he spent the day doing? Grocery shopping. Damn him.

"You're sure," Max says, his voice grasping at straws, at Dean.

"One hundred percent. These sorts of things don't lie, Maxy," Dean says dully.

Then he lashes out with no warning, kicking the desk chair across the room. It thuds into the wall, totters for a second then falls over. Dean's breathing hard – he feels like he's drowning – because what can he do in twelve hours, what the fuck can he do in _twelve hours _when he has no fucking clue where to begin?

Max's fingers press into his sleeve, curve gently around the watch and lift it from Dean's numb fingers.

"Let me," he murmurs, clasping his palms tight around it, concentrating and letting his eyes fall closed, his inner eye fall open.

Dean's been around Sam long enough to know what that feels like – the prickling of hairs on the back of his neck and arms, the heavy taste in the back of his throat – and what it means when Max's eyes snap open a minute later and his smile is painfully bright.

"Got it. I got it, Dean."

"Max," Dean says, just that, Max. But what he means is, _you're not lying to me, you'd better not be lying, oh god oh god oh god what where is he where is my Sam Sammy where. _

"I wouldn't lie to you," Max breathes. "I know how much Sam means to you."

Dean's eyes narrow, sharpen, and he tries to judge in just what context Max meant that last statement.

"Then let's go," Dean growls, and reaches for his duffle and his favorite knife.

***

Max directs Dean to another small town, fifty miles away. Dean breaks all the speed laws in the state, but it doesn't goddamn matter anyway, practically no one even lives in Montana. It's like a deserted wilderness, farms just starting to go feral, rusted-out hulks of cars sitting in weedy front lawns, and Dean doesn't care about any of it because now he's got a definite destination.

Wilmington, Montana.

Quaint little name, quaint little town – ordinarily the type of place Dean and Sam (And Max) would blow right through, but not tonight. Tonight, apparently, there's going to be a gate to hell ripped open right in the center of Wilmington's unsuspecting main street. It's all very _Buffy_-esque, and Dean chuckles to himself, ignoring Max's uncomfortable glances.

He cruises into Wilmington with ten and a half hours of Sam's life left to spare, which is actually a really sad and infuriating way to judge time but he's under pressure – he figures it pays to know the enemy, and to know exactly what he's under pressure about.

When Max tells him to stop at a diner, Dean pulls into the parking lot so fast he almost lays tracks with his tires.

"Is this… this is it?" He asks, incredulously, hyped and skeptical all at once because _Mom 'n' Pops Greasy Spoon Café _isn't exactly where he expected a demon trying to get back to hell to hang out. Dean has a crazy image of Barney, flipping flapjacks in the back, spinning the order wheel and grinning like a loon.

"No, I just wanted you to pull over so I could focus on the exact location better," Max says, shoots him a look that says, _I thought you were supposed to know this stuff. _

"Oh," Dean says lamely, and reaches up to rub the back of his neck. "Well, okay. I'll, um, I'll leave you to it. I just – coffee. Yeah." He pulls himself out of the Impala, shrugging his jacket straight on his shoulders and walks to the diner door.

Inside it's warm and mundane and _boring_, and even though Dean's hours away from losing the single person he cares about most in the entire world, the single person he'd die for, cry in front of, let drive his car, hell, the only person he'd let touch his_ dick _at this point, he's still glad he's not one of these people, living their lives out in some dead-end town in some dead-end state with big rocks and lots of trees. The job might kill Sam, but the job is what keeps Dean sane.

He flirts with the counter girl on principle and gets his coffee strong and black. Max slides onto the stool next to him after a little while.

"See anything?" Dean asks, deceptively calm.

"Yeah. You any good at breaking and entering?"

"Stupid question," Dean says bluntly, and then, "Where?"

"Wilmington Elementary," Max sighs.

"Serious? A school?" Dean looks interested, doubtful. "Well, I guess it makes sense, I always did think schools were hell."

"Har har," Max says obediently.

Dean punches him lightly on the shoulder, hiding his smile. "Goddamn kid. Respect your elders and betters."

Max rolls his eyes. "I guess one out of two ain't so bad, old timer."

His delivery is deadpan and Dean purses his lips, forcing his eyebrows into a glower.

"Just wait, when Sam and I –" Dean begins, and then cuts himself off.

Max's eyes are slanted away, his glass of Coke untouched in front of him. Dean curses himself, curses his vulnerability because John taught both of them a long time ago that a hunter never thinks in _when_ and _where_ certainties, but in _if _and _maybe_ possibilities – because you never know when the other guy's going to keel over and it's just better in the long run to be prepared.

"Let's move out," Dean says quietly, and Max nods.

Dean doesn't finish his coffee. Neither of them leaves a tip.

***

Wilmington Elementary is a long, low brick building, brown and aged, starting to go decrepit around the edges in a way that makes Dean think uncomfortably of that old, freaky lady. At four o'clock in the afternoon it's no longer crawling with snot-nosed kids, but it's still mostly occupied with faculty and after-school activities and God knows what. Dean pulls the Impala up across the street and throws it into park, slings an arm out the window and stares at the heavy front doors.

"So… ideas?"

Max opens his mouth, surprised. "You're actually asking me? In all seriousness?"

Dean cocks an eyebrow. "Yeah. You got a problem?"

"I thought you hated – well, um," Max begins, but then cuts himself off awkwardly.

"I do. I did. I don't know, but you're kind of all I got at this point Maxy, and I need your input on this so I at least have some small idea of what you're capable of. No offense, but your performance at Barney's house wasn't exactly five-star."

Max's mouth twists. "At least I stopped that thing with the teeth."

"Right," Dean smirks, "that thing with the teeth. You did do that. However, this is a bit more important, you know?"

"Yeah, I do." Max falls silent, looking around Dean and staring at the front doors. "How much time do we have left?"

"Nine and some," Dean says calmly, but his heart is going a mile a minute. Nine hours. _Nine hours. _

Max looks thoughtful, chews his lip, then looks apologetically at Dean, says, "'Scuze me," and closes his eyes, brow furrowing as he stretches a hand towards the school.

Dean focuses on the lightly trembling fingers in front of his nose. The nails are clean, unbitten, and there's a small scar on the back of his ring finger. Knife cut, maybe.

"Well, I got a fix on two things that could be our… our demon." Max pauses before he says the name, like he still can't quite believe it. He pulls his hand back to his chest, rubs it slowly.

"What do you mean?"

"As far as psychic resonance, I can detect two epicenters: a huge one in the basement – although it seems like it's further underground than your average basement – and another slightly smaller on the third floor, left side."

Dean turns to stare at that side of the building. The windows stare back, blank and silent. Max keeps talking.

"Neither of them feels human to me, but neither of them feels outright evil, so I don't know which one we want. It's always possible that this school has a resident spirit – poltergeist, murdered teacher, you name it – and that that's what one of these is. I'm also tracking four or five smaller presences, but these seem highly mobile, probably just the natural mental smears bound to be left in a building that's held so many people."

Max realizes Dean's staring at him and blushes. "What?"

"Christ, kid. You know more than you let on."

"Well, working with Sam helped me, too. We sort of, I don't know, figured out things together. I was always a little stronger on sensing auras. Sam's more the telekinetic type."

Dean nods, his head swimming. Just how much did Max know about he and Sam? If Max could sense that much from across the fucking _street_, then living in a motel room with the guy for months was bound to make Dean an open book.

"I can turn it off, Dean. That was the first thing I had to learn, just to keep from going crazy." Max's eyes are sad and knowing, like he's been looked at distrustfully before.

Dean knows that look, the feeling that comes with it. He's seen it with Sam, so he moves on.

"So how do you want to do this?"

"Maybe wait a little? Until the rest of these people clear out?"

"I was hoping you wouldn't say that," Dean mutters, twisting at the waist. He fishes around in the backseat, gives a grunt of satisfaction and comes back with the small paper sack from the hardware store. "And yet I feel no guilt when I say, 'as fuckin' if.' Let's go."

Dean's rummaging in the trunk for something easily concealable but _powerful_ when Max comes barreling around the side like an angry dog.

"Are you _insane_? There're _kids_ in there. You want to have a goddamn hell-demon showdown with collateral damage like _that_?"

"_Ex_ hell-demon Max," Dean says calmly, "and you're really starting to piss me off. Guess Sam taught you something after all."

"Common sense?" Max shoots back, not giving an inch.

Dean is looking Max in the eye when he's hit with this wave of pride, like, _I did this. I made this._ Max, who was quivering and afraid; who was one step away from killing himself, his family, strangers in the street; who ran from shadows and abhorred the light of the sun – that Max was gone. Here in his place stood another man, another Max, another future. _I fixed him. _

Dean lets the grin creep over his face, seeping into the cracks like slow molasses. Max looks puzzled, angry, determined – Sam all over again, younger and foolish but so ready to fight.

"Common sense is so last summer." Dean smirks and flicks the barrels of his sawed-off shotgun upwards, snapping it into place with a crisp click.

Max seems mesmerized by the barrels for a moment before he turns and paws through the trunk, holding up a gun a minute later and raising an eyebrow at Dean for approval.

"It'll do," Dean says, and sticks the shotgun in the waistband of his pants at the small of his back. He hopes his leather jacket and his personal charm will be enough to cover it all. "Let's hit it."

***

"I'm sorry, who did you say you were again?"

Dean can feel himself fidgeting and goddamn but he _knows_ it looks bad, it's just that he can't stop. Stupid school secretaries. Stupid school offices. He should be _done _with this shit, he's a grown man. Schools can shove it where the sun don't shine.

Ms. Hurley clears her throat pointedly.

"Uh, I'm John – John Smith? And this is my… half-brother Harry. We're here to pick up our cousin." Dean can feel his hand rising, rising, going in for the nervous neck-rub, but he forces it ruthlessly back down.

"Joey," she says, clarifying, and Dean immediately latches onto the name.

"Right, Joey. Little Joey Smith. You see, he has a doctor's appointment today that his mom forgot to call in about, so she sent us." Dean stops awkwardly. Max gives a little wave. He's standing maybe a half step behind Dean and to the right. "Anyway, if you could just clear us, we'll go pick him up."

"Uh huh," she says and her cat-eye glasses flash as she looks down at her attendance sheet. "Well, he's here, he's in 301, Biology class, but really, I think I should call his mother first, just to confirm–"

"That won't be necessary, really. He knows who we are."

"Yes, I know that, but I still think it would be prudent to make sure–"

Max suddenly gives a thick choking noise and Dean whirls in time to see him stagger drunkenly on his feet, eyes rolling back to the whites, before his shoulders jerk sharply to the right and he twists into an awkward fall.

Dean barely manages to catch him before he brains himself on one of the dull office chairs.

"Oh my god!" Ms. Hurley is on her feet, hands pressed to her throat, her mouth hanging open. "Is he – is he all right? What's wrong with him?" Her arms are fleshy and pale, raised protectively, shielding her torso.

Max shudders in Dean's arms, his entire body spasming again and again. His head's thrown back and his throat is working, mouth open like he's trying to swallow some air but just can't _make_ it.

"He's an, um, un-medicated epileptic?" Dean says, voice snagging upwards at the end because he can't help it, it's a _crappy _lie.

Ms. Hurley nods like of _course_ he is, why didn't_ I _think of that?

"I'll go find you some help," Ms. Hurley whispers, her eyes large in her round face. She tiptoes past Max like he's going to bite her, back to the wall like a desperate animal.

Dean's seen it before, this reaction to the unfamiliar, and he thanks whatever God there is for it, for the flight of logic and the pure panic-mode that takes over.

"Yeah. Yeah, thanks," He says, turning back to Max who is just coming out of it in Dean's arms, gasping for breath and shaking, spittle dotting his lower lip and chin.

"Man, that was fantastic. You should check into Hollywood after this dude, they could use your talent," Dean whispers, smiling, brushing the hair back from Max's face before asking, "What did you see?"

"I don't know what the fuck's on the third floor, but we want the basement. Sub-basement, actually."

"Gotcha. Can you walk?"

"I'm good, I got it," Max hisses, pushing Dean away and lurching to his feet. He sways for a second and Dean stays crouched, legs braced, but Max steadies himself and nods sharply.

Dean stands, rising to the balls of his feet with a buoyancy that betrays long years spent sprinting and dodging, squatting in alleyways tense and ready.

***

Max finds the basement door first, which isn't a surprise, what with the psychic thing and all. Dean though, Dean's the one who picks the lock.

Dean's the one who glares Max down when he tries to slide ahead.

Dean's the one whose hands aren't shaking.

"I thought we went over this. I recon, you got my back."

"I know, I'm sorry," Max says quietly.

Dean stares at him for the space of a heartbeat then turns and heads down the stairs.

Dean's boots sound loud against the concrete, heavy thuds that echo, and you better believe he's got one eye on the ceiling. He's not taking any chances with Mr. Tall-dark-and-toothy this time. The stairs descend into a small, enclosed hallway lined with doors, and when Dean flicks the light switch the yellow glow that settles chases away the shadows in all the right ways.

Except.

Way down at the other end of the hallway, where another hall forms a sort of "T" out of what could have been a dead end, there's one light bulb flickering. Was it doing that when he turned it on? It goes out while he's watching it, plunging the perpendicular hall into gloom. _Bingo. _

Dean ignores all the doors – ignores the opened ones, ignores the closed ones – walks past without a second glance because there's nothing in those rooms that he cares about. What he cares about is whatever fucker just offed that light bulb.

Max draws a startled breath behind him when the light over the stairs explodes without warning, bursting outwards and sending jagged fragments of glass down on where Dean and Max were standing seconds before. The shadows left behind jump down the stairs like they're alive, fluid and eager.

"Typical," Dean mutters, hand going into his pocket to clutch the paper bag.

The second bulb goes with a dull pop, darkening another small section of the hallway. Dean keeps walking and Max shuffles a little closer, a little faster. It's right at the edge of the pool of darkness that leads to the cross of the "T" that Dean stops, turns to Max with the popcorn blasts of light bulbs trailing them relentlessly.

"I don't have a flashlight." He looks unconcerned, stony, but his eyes in the rapidly dimming light are glinting with anger and a touch of worry.

_Pop, _ the bulb two away from Max gives up the ghost, follows its cronies to light bulb heaven.

"What? What do you mean? You always have a flashlight!" Something very close to panic floods Max's face.

"Well, I don't! I have–" _Pop, _ the next goes and Dean thinks that maybe he can hear something back the way they came, something slow and steady, confident. "–I have matches."

Max looks half-dead in the dim light, his cheeks hollow, and he's just opening his mouth to speak when the light directly above them flashes out.

There's a moment where Dean can still see Max's face floating in front of him, a pale, staring outline imprinted on his retinas, but then all he can hear is Max's frantic breathing and his own pounding heart.

Then the stealthy sound of movement in the dark.

"Max, take my hand."

Fumbling fingers find him and he pulls Max to him, sets both their backs against a wall.

"Can you sense anything?"

"No," Max whispers brokenly, "but I can hear–"

"I _know_," Dean hisses, cutting him off and digging frantically for the matches in his jeans' pocket. He feels with his fingers – only five left, God_damn _– and manages to light one. There's barely enough illumination to see the other side of the hallway and Max is an indistinct lump beside him, but what Dean does see is fucking _enough_, thank you.

It's a hand. Or it was, it should be, but something's _wrong_, like all the knuckles were broken and never set properly or – or – it pulls slowly out of sight, out of their little bubble of light.

The match burning low snaps Dean out of it and when he looks, really _looks _at the dark print left behind he realizes that it didn't have enough fingers.

"Dean," Max trembles, his voice cracking.

The match sputters, goes out, and Dean makes the split second decision to_ run like hell_. He grabs for Max as he turns on his heel, catches a handful of shirt and yanks him along, around the corner, before shoving him violently in front and struggling with the matches again trying to light one because fuck fuck _fuck. _

The first one bends hopelessly –_ cheap-ass cardboard! _– and he drops it, feels a breeze pass the side of his face like something just tried to swipe at him, and then the second match flares to life, guttering for what seems like an achingly long time before he manages to shield it and it catches fully. He realizes he dropped the matchbook somewhere and the other two matches are history because he is _not _going back.

He wonders what he must look like, running flat out and hunched over a tiny, tiny match courtesy of the Long-Time-No-See bar in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Max is an indistinct blob of movement ahead of him and he takes a moment to appreciate the stride on that kid, because _damn_.

_I hope he was on the track team. _

That's when Max gives a garbled cry – it could be triumph, it could be gratitude, it could be despair – and yanks open a door. White light blasts through, like it's the door to fuckin' Heaven or something, and Dean almost sobs in relief. _Almost. _

He turns his head to the side – morbid curiosity, unable to help himself, _what's hunting _me_ this time _– and wishes he hadn't.

It's only a faint impression, one of long, gangly limbs, too many joints and too few eyes, the pallid skin and bat-like ears of a creature that's never seen the sun – but it's goddamn good enough. Dean speeds up, feeling his heart in his throat because it was _reaching_, but then the white light from the door hits it and it gives out this shrill screech, falls back like it's been kicked in the chest and squirms out of sight, back into the darkness.

Dean stands in the doorway, just inside the hallway, feels Max next to him warm and reassuring and grins.

"Gotta love this job."

"You have got to be shitting me," Max says harshly.

Dean looks at him, squinting against the brightness. He looks like he's just run twenty miles, his hair wild and his face sweaty and red. Dean chuckles.

"Hey, best exercise routine in the world, kid. Gets the heart rate up like nothing else–" Dean falls back with a girly shriek as something wet splats into the side of his face. He jumps through the door, almost on top of Max, and slams it behind him, clawing frantically at his cheek.

Max looks shocked, but then he starts to laugh.

"What is it! What the fuck is it! Stop laughing!"

"Dude, I think you just got spitballed," Max manages to say, before he has to turn away, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

Dean looks down at his hand and sure enough he appears to have scraped off a glob of phlegm. Gross phlegm – _purple_ phlegm, what the hell – but only phlegm.

"I knew that," Dean hears himself say, but Max is still smiling like it's the circus in town or something, the little creep.

"Whatever," Dean grumbles, and then thanks God that Sam wasn't here because he'd never hear the end of it.

Max calms down enough to keep a straight face, and Dean opens the next door – _like a fucking funhouse, what is_ with_ these old schools and basements_ – and sees another set of stairs leading down into darkness.

"Well. Dropped my matches."

Max doesn't say anything; he knows why well enough.

That's when Dean grabs his head like goddamn Harry Potter and goes down on one knee from the stabbing pain between his eyes. His mouth opens to scream but years of training stops him just in time because no telling what might hear. Max stares in disbelief because _he's_ the one who should be having the visions around here.

"Sam…" Dean grits out between clenched teeth. His eyes are squeezed shut and he's pressing the heels of his hands into his temples so hard the skin around them is white.

"What? Sam? He's doing this?"

"No," Dean gasps, and his eyes pop open suddenly, unseeing, tears starting at the corners. "No, but he's down there, and he's _hurting _God he's _hurting_ Max, my Sam. Oh, my Sammy… oh fuck, Sammy… _fuck_!"

Max's brow furrows. He places a hand on Dean's forehead and closes his eyes. Dean sags against him a second later, panting in relief.

"What'd… what'd you do?"

"Put up a barrier."

Dean's head jerks upward, his eyes just this side of angry.

"Don't worry, it won't last more than two days," Max says, taking a step back. "I just don't want you freaking out down there, okay?"

Dean's mouth works because now he can't sense Sam anymore. His world already looked smaller when Sam wasn't there pushing it open with his strong fingers and soft, sarcastic mouth, and now that Max has taken away the last link between them, Dean feels like he's cramped and dying.

"Okay?"

"All right," Dean sighs, and then gets up off the ground. He's not all right. His knees are dusty. He doesn't look at Max when he brushes past him to head down the stairs.

"Wait, what are we going to do with no light?" Max asks, voice rising in pitch at the end.

"Make shit up," Dean responds, face forward and stoic.

Max blanches, hand going to the hard weight of the concealed gun at his side, but he follows Dean down without complaint.

***

The room is huge, ceiling up and out of sight, breezy by default simply because of air struggling to fill all the nooks and crannies. Dean's eyes jerk up to the murky blackness over his head, straining for flash of teeth, sigh of breath, anything that'll save them from surprise attack, but he can't see jack. The sense of _space _in here is like nothing else even though he can barely see five feet in front of him. The room is not completely dark – an ambient glow oozes from the stairs behind them and something deeper curls around their legs, strokes a golden line on Max's cheeks and slashes dark shadows behind the piles of boxes and odds and ends that push in on all sides.

"Where do you think–" Max starts to whisper, but Dean hacks the air with the side of his palm, cutting Max off as efficiently as slapping him across the face. No telling what might hear them. No telling what already has.

Dean moves silently, wincing every time Max scuffs a shoe, draws a deep breath, fucking allows his heart to _beat_, but nothing is coming at them. It's totally silent except for the odd hum of distance and breathing room, and Dean isn't ready for it at all when he rounds the splintered edge of a long-forgotten piano. He isn't ready for what he sees and what he feels.

There in the corner – Sam.

Dean feels himself slowing down, pulling up, every nerve in his body suddenly buzzing with Sam's nearness and Sam's pain and Dean's helpless, overwhelming gladness at being able to see him again. The ball of Sam in Dean's brain pulses to blinding life in a second, radiating past all of Max's barriers like they're tissue paper, soaks Dean to the core, stroking over his face like God, you're here, you're really here.

Dean has an instant to look Sam in the eye – one instant to open his mouth and not be able to say anything because he's smiling so hard his cheeks hurt – a single instant when all he has to do is untie Sam and beat feet like there's no tomorrow.

But then it's too late.

"Dean!" Max yells, jagged like he's been screaming where no one can hear him, and Dean senses the larger presence behind him before he can reply.

"So, you have found him."

The voice sounds normal, like any old man who's getting on in years and debts. Dean doesn't want to turn around because maybe if he doesn't nothing will happen and it'll be some janitor or maintenance man with a sicko complex for the young and pretty and too goddamn much time on his hands. Dean can deal with that, easy. He's got nothing against beating the guy to the ground and leaving him for the police to find.

Instead, Barney makes the decision for him, choosing that heartbeat of hesitation to lumber around in front of Dean, belly swaying low to the ground and feet treading heavy-soft. He's purple and he's ugly and he's _big_, but Dean doesn't flinch, even when the sickly violet tail slithers past and brushes against his leg, coils around it like a lover, and then leaves him feeling used and strung-out.

"Let him go," Dean tries, but his voice is scratchy and barely there, like he's been cursing at walls and dead ends for hours and hours. "Find someone else."

Barney chuckles, his stomach jerking through the deep vibrations, and extends an oddly vulnerable looking hand to Dean. "What would you give me if I did? I require a psychic to complete the ritual."

Before Dean can stop himself, his head snaps around and he's staring at Max.

Max stares back like his throat's been cut, face bloodless and shiny with perspiration.

Dean doesn't like the kid, he doesn't at goddamned all, and he loves Sam like he's never loved anyone ever, but he's a hunter and he's human and he's not about to give up one life for another just to save his kid brother.

Just to save himself.

"I… I can't," Dean whispers.

Barney licks his lips, grins, piano-key teeth and a treacherous tongue. "Then I guess you will just have to watch him die," Barney says, and extends a hand towards Sam slowly, inevitably.

Dean looks at Sam, and he almost starts to cry because Sam is nodding at him, smiling, eyes luminous with pride like he's done something _right _by not trading Max in like a baseball card. Like he's done something _right _by sentencing Sam to death.

"Dean, don't," Sam says, _don't cry_, and his voice breaks Dean all over again.

It's been so long and he craves it – craves it like he sometimes craves cigarettes in the middle of the night when it's quiet and dark and all he's got is his own stale sweat soaking the sheets.

Barney starts to speak, lips rolling back over foul words that aren't Latin, aren't exactly human at all – words that burn Dean's ears and leave a slimy taste on his tongue. Dean grits his teeth, feeling wave after wave of verbal filth wash over him and he still feels like he's moving through mud, too slow and old. Sam stiffens against his bonds, neck straining against the tightly wrapped rope, tendons bulging over the raggedy line it cuts across his flesh. Sam's face flushes violently red, like all the blood in his entire body is rushing to the surface, and his eyes start to darken at the edges, tendrils leaping inward to connect his blown pupil to the spreading scum of black.

Dean stands, legs braced wide, and he knows in that instant that he lost, that this is it. This is the end. Sam's going to die and he, Dean, will be left alone in the world – finally, mercifully, horribly alone, with no one left to lose and a hole in his heart the size of Cincinnati. A sharp pain stabs through his chest, a cramp that should have him doubled over and gasping but he welcomes it, welcomes the agony for the rest of his life, the best he deserves.

But then Max saves him, _again_, the little fucker.

"_What the fuck are you doing?!_"

It's yelled, shockingly, right next to his ear, and Dean realizes Max has run forward, arms waving like a maniac, like he's totally forgotten he's got a silver-loaded gun in his waist-band and a head full of psychic mojo. Dean jerks out of his daze, glances at Sam who seems to be passed out and_ bleeding from the ears godfuckingdammit_, and then his hand dives into his pocket and rips out the paper bag he's been carrying ever since that one hardware store, way back at the beginning of all this.

The paper disintegrates under his shaking, purposeful hands, and a knife emerges like some kind of remnant of a draconian age. It's crude, like it's been hacked into shape by someone who had no idea what they were doing, but at the same time it's smooth, polished by years, decades, centuries of use. The metal is faded, almost black with a slippery gleam at the edges that hints at its razor sharpness.

Max makes a strangled noise. "That's _it_? What you've been hiding from me this entire time? A knife the size of my friggin' _thumb_?"

Before Dean can block him, Max reaches out and grasps the blade. He recoils almost instantly, hand greased with blood and eyes round in his shadowed face.

"Holy shit."

"Dude, yeah," Dean says, because this is Saint Peter's knife, righteously owned by the Keeper of the Keys and blessed a thousand times over in its long and eventful existence. Dean doesn't know how the old man at the hardware store had it, or how he knew Dean would need it, but the guy swore on his own life and the lives of his family that Jesus himself had touched this knife.

Dean doesn't take oaths like that lightly.

But he doesn't have time to think anymore because Barney's smelled psychic blood and he's coming for it like a shark in deep water. His shape shifts, sinuous, into a smaller man-beast, purple scaled and heavily corded with muscle. His arms are ape-like, long and unnatural, reaching for Max's blood-drenched hand, and Max does the best deer-in-the-headlights imitation Dean's seen in a long time.

His training kicks in then, and as Barney reaches past him, around him – _swear to God his arm is stretching _– he drops into a low crouch and slashes at Barney's hand, ducking under and out of range. Two fingers hit the floor, the ragged nails skittering drunkenly as they continue to writhe towards Max. Max is backing away, shaking his head slowly like _this can't be happening_, and Dean wishes he were close enough to laugh and make it worthwhile.

"You idiot," Barney snarls, and then Dean's got his hands full with seven foot million of angry, hungry hell-beast.

Dean leaps nimbly backward, praying there's nothing there to trip over because if he takes his eyes off Barney for a second he's gonna lose something mighty vital. Like, say, his _head. _ Barney's claws are moving so fast the snickering sound they make slicing through the air inches from Dean's nose has him breaking out in a cold sweat – a final reaper, come to claim Dean's borrowed time.

Usually at times like these Dean's all for the bantering. He likes the demons to think he doesn't give a fuck; he likes the ghosts to think this is a goddamn walk in the park and that he's got so many more important things he could be doing than being _here _fighting _them_ and please just _banish already_. Dean not only likes to kill the baddies, but he likes to kill 'em when they're demoralized as shit and practically sticking their necks out for the holy water. That doesn't happen all the time, but Dean never stops trying, stops spouting off jokes and taunts and talking shit about their mommas, if they have any.

Not this time.

The most Dean can manage are harsh breaths – when he remembers – and sharp grunts of exertion when he has to complete an especially twisted dodge. Every now and then he catches a glimpse of Sam and has to fight not to be distracted. Sam looks like he's breathing fine again at least, but his head is hanging down and his hair is blocking his face. Dean can't see how bad the damage is. Dean also has no fucking clue where Max is.

Plus, that fucking tail is really pissing him off, trying to whisper in around the edges of his guard and wipe his feet out from under him. He curses as he has to jump awkwardly again, trying to avoid the tail while at the same time trying to keep his guts _inside _his belly, thank you very much. Dean hasn't had much chance to use the knife, what with Barney having such phenomenal reach and all, and it's pretty much touch and go at this point, if he could just try and get under–

"Hey! Hey, asshole!"

_Oh, shit. _

"What's the matter, you chicken-shit or something? Pretending you can't hear me?"

_Well. There's Max. _

If there's one thing demons can't stand, it's a straight up insult to their pride. Barney proves to be no exception, eyeballing Max like he's already slicing out Max's kidneys.

"Yeah, that's right. You heard me," Max is panting, his face euphoric. He's standing alone on top of a bookshelf, of all things, a few dusty books languishing inside. "You some kinda fucking coward? Jeez, betcha can't even get it together enough to lick your own balls."

Dean winces, _ooh, good one_, and that's when Barney completely turns his back like Dean doesn't even exist. Suddenly, Dean _gets_ it.

He lines up and throws the knife before he can think better of it, aiming directly for the spinal column, trying to get in a lethal hit, separating the skull from the spinal cord in one vicious, almost-always fatal blow.

The knife slides in like it's cutting butter, thudding into place as if it's been waiting for this very moment, these very vertebrae, since it left Saint Peter's hands.

Barney freezes. Dean freezes. Max jerks backwards like he was the one struck with the knife, his foot slipping off the edge of his perch and then he's wind-milling his arms frantically, falling in slow motion, landing with a crash behind the bookcase, out of sight.

Sam doesn't react at all.

"Gotcha," Dean says quietly, feeling the word reverberate in his throat like a death knell and a victory shout all at once.

Barney starts to turn, staggers and falls to one knee. He wrenches himself all the way around so he's facing Dean, eyes on fire and face rippling, changing at a million skins a minute, but his body stays the same, and Dean knows he's hit the right nerves dead on.

"You will pay for this," Barney hisses, starting to lean forward helplessly, unable to control his limbs.

"Oh, I don't think so. Devil doesn't _like _you, remember?" Dean smirks, and this he knows, _this_ is solid ground. "You're fucked, dude. And you're dead." Dean raises a hand, wiggles his fingers in a little wave.

"I will kill you. I will–" Barney starts, but his body finally gives out and he topples to the floor face-first.

His frantic growls are muffled, and Dean walks forward slowly, all the time in the world. It's the work of a moment to place the heel of his boot on the handle of the knife and push. There's a crunch as Barney's spine completely severs and his enraged gibbering cuts off.

The silence is deafening.

Max starts to laugh.

***

Sam's weight is heavy in Dean's arms – _deadweight _– and Dean tries not to think about the way his hands are sticking to the blood on Sam's back, the congealed mess on the sides of Sam's face and neck. Dean concentrates instead on checking Sam's pulse – weak but steady – and pulling Sam's eyelids gently open, seeing if he responds to light.

Max has stopped laughing by now; he's standing over Barney, staring down at the dusky purple body and the disconcerting lack of blood. Dean almost doesn't believe the demon is dead, but the knife is sticking out of Barney's neck like some kind of twisted leech, damning proof.

"Gotta set that bitch on fire," Dean advises, and Max jumps like he's forgotten Dean is there.

"I thought you lost your matches."

"I did. You're friggin' psychic. Find something flammable."

Max fidgets, walks away from the body sort of sideways, like he doesn't want to turn his back to it. "It doesn't work like that Dean, what I'm tracking has to at least have some sort of brain wave, you know?"

Dean stares silently at Max.

Max shrugs and turns away, hands up defensively, walking around the corner of a pile of old newspapers. Once he's out of sight he says, "I'll see if I can find matches somewhere."

Sam suddenly jerks in Dean's arms, eyes flying open and mouth stretching, huge and disbelieving, into a gasp of pain. He starts breathing loudly, quickly, close to hyperventilating, his eyes darting around and around until they settle on Dean.

"Hi Sammy," Dean says quietly, then smiles. "Whoops, I mean Sam. Gave me a fuckin' hell of a scare, you know that?"

Sam solemnly gazes up at Dean, but then his eyes well up, luminous in the dim light, and he murmurs, "Dean. Oh God, Dean," in this cracked out, burned up voice, before turning and burying his face in Dean's chest, breathing deep like he's smelling Dean, trying to draw Dean into his lungs, into his body.

Dean knows he doesn't smell like a field of flowers. Fighting demons is sweaty work and he can feel perspiration itchy and drying on his back, his forehead, his armpits – everywhere – but Sam keeps pressing his nose into Dean, mouthing Dean through the cloth like words or praying or just moving his lips to feel something soft again.

"Hey, hey Sam, bro, it's ok. I got you. I'm here, and I got you," Dean repeats, over and over.

He pulls Sam into the cradle of his shoulder and buries a hand in his greasy, shaggy hair. Sam reeks of blood and fire, of days of dirt and sweat and fear – the stench practically comes off in waves – and it's the best thing Dean's ever smelled in his entire life.

Sam stretches up, lays his lips against Dean's neck – slightly open, a hint of teeth – and hums softly with pleasure. Dean rests his chin on Sam's head and tries not to explode or faint or fall over.

Max finds them still sitting on the floor. Dean's legs are cramping but he's not complaining.

"Did you find any matches?"

"Sure did," Max says. "One of the janitors must be a smoker."

"Burn it," Dean tilts his head towards Barney.

He watches impassively as it flames to life, every now and then directing Max towards a place where the fire threatens to get out of control. The flames aren't giving off any smoke and Barney's body crumples almost immediately as if it was never there at all. The pile of ashes left behind is about the size of Dean's palm and that's just not right.

"Well," Max sighs, sitting back on his heels. He's across the small mound of ashes, facing Dean. "That wasn't nearly violent enough."

"Let's get the hell out of here," Dean growls, choosing to ignore Max because it _wasn't _and Dean wanted spouting blood, jittering limbs and screaming. It's only fair, after what happened to Sam.

Dean manages to remember the knife; it sits, innocuous and silent on the smoldering remains. He jostles Sam, grabs it then shoves it into his boot. Someone else will need it – Bobby will want it – and a good hunter wouldn't leave something that powerful behind or let it fall from their side of the fight.

"I found a window on the other side of the room. It's been tarred over, but I bet we could break it open."

"Let's do it," Dean says, and staggers to his feet, refusing to let go of Sam.

Dean gets Max to kick the window open, and he feels a dull surprise when Max doesn't complain. _He's not supposed to be a hunter yet; he's just a kid. _

Too late.

***

The back seat squeaks under Sam as he shifts and Dean's eyes dart to the rearview for the millionth time. He's tilted it down so he can't see the road, only Sam's sprawled shape, a darker brown against the leather. Max is cradling Sam's head in his lap and Dean can just see the edge of his hand, fingers white against Sam's blood-streaked forehead.

"All right?" Dean asks, and he can't stop his voice from cracking. _So goddamn close. _

"Yeah, fine," Max murmurs, and his white fingers move, darting through Sam's hair like swallows building a nest. "He's sleeping."

"Good," Dean mutters and forces his eyes to follow the white dotted line. Someone honks behind him, but he can't see them. They don't exist. All he can see is Sam.

The weight of the pocket watch is warm inside his jacket, hanging heavy against his side and pulsing like a human heart. Dean doesn't want to look at it. What if it's still ticking? What if it was all over before it even began and Sam's still destined to die in seven hours, just like he was before Dean knifed that demon, bit his nails and prayed?

Sam makes a gasping noise and Dean's eyes fly to the rearview again, heart in his throat. Sam's lips shine like he's just licked them and Dean feels a curl deep in his belly that he ruthlessly squashes. Not the time for it at fucking all.

Max soothes a hand over Sam's chest, rubbing in circles, and Sam settles again.

"Thank you," Dean blurts out, and he's inordinately glad that Max can't see his face. He knows he couldn't say this if he had to look into Max's too-old eyes. Max has guessed too much already.

"You didn't have to say that," Max chuckles, but Dean feels a quick pressure on his shoulder, a warm press of _you're welcome_, exactly the non-acknowledgement that won't make the situation awkward later and Dean's so, so grateful.

Dean pulls into a motel without thinking. Finding a cheap place to stay is second nature by now, and he turns to Max, hooking an arm over the seat. "Stay here. I'll get us a room."

Max nods.

The woman at the desk is a washed out version of Charo, eyes heavily painted and lips unnaturally full. She flutters her lashes so much Dean swears he feels a breeze. He doesn't make eye contact and she hands him the room key with a small sigh of regret, meant to draw his attention.

Dean turns his back and walks back out to the Impala. He thinks he hears a 'fuck you' but he doesn't much care.

He opens the back door and starts, "Let me –"

"I know," Max grunts, cutting him off, maneuvers Sam so Dean can haul him up and into his arms.

***

Sam sleeps for two days.

It's driving Dean crazy – fucking batshit _crazy_ – because he doesn't want to leave and miss Sam waking up, but he doesn't want to just _sit_ there, either. Max laughs at him every few hours and Dean glares at Max as hard as he can, wishing he could still strike fear in Max's heart like he used to when they first picked the goddamn kid up.

"You know," Max says on the evening of the first day. Dean's been pacing back and forth in front of the TV for about an hour. "You could maybe do that on the other side of the room and not in front of my show?"

"No thanks, I'm good here," Dean shoots back, shuffling his feet slower just because he can.

"Jesus Dean, why don't you go out? Go get a beer? I can watch Sam for a little bit."

"Fuck no! I don't –" _I don't trust you_, is what he's thinking, but he does trust Max. He does, and that shocking truth makes Dean stop and stare.

Max blinks back for a few seconds, and then starts to lean to the side, helpfully hinting that Dean should _get out of the damn way_.

"Ungrateful bitch," Dean snorts, moving to sit in the desk chair he's dragged to the side of Sam's bed.

Sam's face is pressed into the pillow, one eye and the corner of his mouth visible, and Dean squints at him like maybe if he concentrates hard enough Sam will wake up. Sam doesn't even twitch.

"The both of you," Dean mutters, dropping his face into his hands, grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes.

The morning of the second day Max says, "If you won't go out, I will," and doesn't slam the door on his way out.

Dean waits for maybe five seconds before he hisses, "Fucking _finally_," and stretches out next to Sam, gathering his little brother into his arms. Sam fits perfectly just like always, and Dean feels the indefinable ball of emotion he's been trying to suppress for what seems like forever start to rise into his throat.

"I'm never letting you out of my sight again," Dean murmurs into Sam's hair.

Dean falls asleep within minutes and when he wakes up Max is slouched on the other bed again, empty candy wrappers by his side, absorbed in an old _Buffy_ rerun. The angle of the sun through the windows tells Dean it's late afternoon.

He picks sleep from the corners of his eyes and growls, "Why didn't you wake me?"

Max shrugs. "You're the hunter. Thought you'd hear me."

Max is getting entirely too smart for his own good. Dean thinks dark thoughts about handcuffs and road signs in the middle of nowhere.

"I heard that," Max grins, but Dean just rolls his eyes.

It's at eleven o'clock that night that Sam finally shifts, rolling over onto his back. Dean's at the desk doing the only thing he can think of that'll take his mind off of _anything_: weapons inventory. Dean drops the gun he's cleaning as Sam starts to groan, is at Sam's side running soothing fingers through long hair before Sam's eyes open.

Sam looks blank, panicked and desperate at the same time, like he doesn't want to give up but he's just fought too hard for too long.

"Sam," Dean says, hoping to snap him out of it. Sam trembles at the sound of Dean's voice, his eyes clearing, and he turns his face into Dean's hand.

"He actually awake?" Max inquires softly from next to Dean's elbow.

"I think so." Dean pats Sam's cheek gently. "You up, Sam?"

"'M up," Sam rasps, and it sounds like every other morning of their entire lives. Dean doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"Good deal, little brother," Dean murmurs. Sam cracks a small smile but he looks wan and thin, the hollows of his cheeks sharply defined, and Dean can feel Sam's ribs pressing into his hip. "You want something to eat?" Dean asks, trying to take his mind off it but instead saying the exact thing that emphasizes Sam's starved appearance.

"Sure," Sam sighs, and this time his eyes are luminous, fixed on Dean. "But first I want to brush my teeth. My mouth tastes like shit."

"I hear that," Dean says, relieved and not knowing how to show it.

Sam stumbles on his way to the bathroom and both Max and Dean make jerky, aborted moves to catch him. Sam doesn't notice. He leaves the door open and Dean watches the way his grimy shirt stretches over his back.

"Do you think he's okay?" Max whispers.

Dean looks sideways and sees Max is chewing his nails, something he's never noticed before.

"He's gotta be." Dean ignores the break in his voice, pasting a smile on his face when Sam comes back into the room.

Dean has no clue where Max got the blueberry muffin he holds out, but Sam grabs it and stuffs it into his mouth without a second thought. Max watches impassively as Sam inhales the crumbs in no time at all, and then silently holds out another muffin. Sam eats this one just as fast and then looks around expectantly.

"That's all I thought to get," Max apologizes.

Dean moves forward. "Sam, you should shower. Then we can go out. Sound good?"

"Yeah," Sam says, his eyes heavy on Dean and Dean can feel himself start to blush.

Dean follows Sam into the bathroom without a word, closing the door on Max, but when Sam turns to him, he holds a hand out and shakes his head.

"Just… the shower, Sam. You're so – I don't think –"

"It's okay," Sam coughs, won't meet Dean's eyes, and how can Dean tell him that he just looks so _fragile_ and Dean doesn't want to hurt him any more.

Dean sits on the closed toilet while Sam strips out of his clothes, wincing at the sharp hipbones and the knobbed spine, watching Sam climb carefully into the tub, making sure he doesn't slip.

Sam starts to close the curtain but Dean says, "Don't." Sam leaves it, turning on the shower and splashes water everywhere but neither of them cares.

***

Over the next few months, Sam recovers. That's all there is to it. At first he's so slow, so thin, that Dean doesn't let him do anything. Dean hides all the newspapers, locks the laptop in the trunk, and makes himself forget about hunting because Sam's still got hollows under his eyes that look like they're painted on. They move motels a few times, from Montana to Idaho, Idaho to Wyoming, Wyoming to Utah, but other than that Dean purposefully keeps their activities to a minimum.

When Sam finally starts looking like a strong gust of wind won't knock him over, Dean starts coaxing him back into a light workout schedule. Sam has to get back into shape again if they're ever going to get back to their normal – and God does Dean want that_ so badly _– but Dean feels like he can't do anything to Sam – can't throw fake punches, much less real ones – so he settles for taking Sam for a run every morning and a few push-ups and pull-ups when they can manage them.

When they work their distance up to five miles is when Dean finally feels like maybe he can start training Sam to fight again. It's slow, so slow, and Sam bruises more easily than Dean remembers, flinches for less and has a tendency to turn his face to the side instead of actually trying to dodge. Several times Sam simply lets Dean hit him and that's more unnerving than anything. Before all of this Sam would have been ducking and taunting Dean with his long reach and his psychic reflexes, but now it's like he doesn't care if he's hurt or not.

They're kicking up dust outside their motel in Utah, Max out buying groceries, when Sam does that thing again, where he just closes his eyes and takes the punch. Dean doesn't slow his fist because he expects Sam to twist away – a facial punch is so fucking _easy _to avoid – and Sam's nose spurts blood, coating his upper lip and soaking into his T-shirt in seconds. Sam stands there dumbly, touches a finger to his nose and then stares at the crimson outlining his fingerprint. Dean promptly flips out.

"What the fucking _fuck_, Sam!"

Sam flinches, looks at Dean from under his lashes.

"Why didn't you dodge that? Jesus _Christ_, are you _trying_ to make me hurt you?"

"I –" Sam starts, and Dean watches a drop of blood fall from his chin to soak into the dry ground.

"No, you know what? I don't want to know. I just – Sam, whatever this thing did to you, it didn't fucking kill you. So for chrissakes _why_ are you trying to finish the job?"

"I'm not."

"Then punch me in the goddamn face."

"Dean!" Sam's eyes are round and shining.

"Sam!" Dean shouts back, and they both stand, vibrating, straining towards each other but unable to move.

Dean draws a breath, lets it out tiredly. "Sam, I didn't want to find you just to lose you."

Sam starts to shake his head, but Dean claps his hands together sharply.

"No! Let me finish! I've tried to be nice to you, I've tried to let you get better, but Sam, there's only so much I can _do_. You gotta pull some of the weight, dude! And stop punishing yourself! If anyone deserves an ass kicking it's Max for freezing up and me for taking so long to fucking find you."

"Dean," Sam tries again, and Dean surges forward, wraps his hands around Sam's biceps and shakes him lightly.

"Snap out of it. I need you back, Sam. I need _you _back. Like before. Just try a little, okay?"

"Nothing's ever going to be the same," Sam says, and the words sound thick in his throat.

"Well, we can sure as hell shoot for something close to it," Dean says, but when Sam's eyes drop to his lips, Dean pushes swiftly away. "Let's call it quits for now, get you cleaned up."

He turns his back on Sam's hurt look.

The thing that Dean's afraid of is that this is all somehow _his _fault. That one way or another Barney picked up on the whole incest factor and decided to do a little righteous smiting and, well, who started this thing between them in the first place? Dean. Dean's got first kiss, first blow-job, and he's willing to bet first wet dream in the fucking bag, so what if all of Sam's troubles are on Dean's head?

He can't _deal _with that.

When Dean watches Sam sometimes and sees that he still limps a little on his right leg, he still favors his left wrist – sees that he can't look anyone in the eye anymore, Dean can't even _think _about what those firsts might have set in motion.

More than likely, what they _have _set in motion.

Evil attracts evil, but Dean's not saying what he and Sam did was evil. Every moment he spent with Sam rings precious in Dean's mind, and maybe that's because he plans never to do it again. But maybe it's because Dean loves Sam and he doesn't want to hurt him anymore, no matter how obtusely.

Sam will see. Sooner or later, Sam will see and understand and he'll _get_ it, that Dean's got to give this up to protect them. All three of them, just Sam, whatever, it's something Dean has to do and he's gotten used to swallowing the pain when it comes to things that are necessary.

It's just that this time it's so much harder than it's been before. If only Sam would stop looking like he's dying, like Dean ripped a piece out of him more permanent than anything Barney did. Sam's got big eyes made for pleading, and goddamn is Dean feeling it, but he can't make himself forget that he's to blame.

_Another day in the life, _ he thinks bitterly, refusing to look at Sam as Sam stalks past him and slams the door to their motel room.

"Do some pushups," Dean yells half-heartedly, but Sam doesn't answer.

***

Dean thinks he's doing a good job keeping his paws off Sam.

It doesn't matter that every time Sam looks at him hard, like something to be figured out, Dean has to go outside or do something with his hands to stop from reaching out. It doesn't matter that sometimes he'll turn around and Sam will be standing _right there_, hips canted forward, stance defiant, daring Dean to make the first move. Dean will have to look away, sidestep Sam and squeeze past, making every effort not to let their clothes brush.

It doesn't matter that Sam looks exhausted all the time, and that Dean wants to hold him and stroke his hair through the _Blade_ rerun on TV until he falls asleep.

Dean. Can't. Touch.

He's punishing _himself_ – if only Sam would stop reacting like Dean's yelling without opening his mouth.

The worst comes every night when Dean wishes like hell he'd rented another room. Instead, Max automatically takes the bathtub, pulling blankets from one of the beds without a word, closing the door on their tense silence.

Dean holds his flannel tight around him and stands at the window, stiff-backed. He's going insane from lack of sleep, pretending he has something to do on the laptop, at the desk – _anywhere_ but lying in that bed across from Sam

Sam doesn't do anything but watch while he belligerently stays away, and Dean can feel that stare and wishes for the impossible.

Sam usually lies down at around 10.00, but he doesn't sleep. Dean can hear Sam's steady breathing over whatever else he's doing – soft slide of metal, hum of laptop – and it feels like Sam's breath is ghosting past his ear. It burns and beckons but it's never deep enough to mean sleep, and Dean knows Sam watches him long past midnight.

Dean will finally drop into bed at 2.00 AM, back firmly to Sam, and it only makes him more desperate when he realizes Sam stays awake until he collapses. It's like Sam wants to make sure Dean gets some sleep – like Sam's taking care of _Dean_ and not the other way around – and Dean's stomach twists with guilt.

Goddammit, Sammy. Goddammit, making it so hard not to touch.

It's been three months, and Dean doesn't know how long he can last.

***

In Lyons, Colorado Dean asks Sam if he feels like going on a hunt.

"Duh," Sam says.

"Took you long enough." Max says, licking grease from his chicken nuggets off his fingers.

Dean glares at him. "I didn't ask you, you little asswipe."

Max grins stupidly.

"So, what've we got?" Sam asks, elbowing Max in the ribs, and Dean's glad to see _someone's _still on his side.

"Standard poltergeist. I didn't want anything too, well, uh…" Dean's not sure how to end that sentence. Too hard? Too soon?

Sam just looks sad. "I get it, Dean. It's cool."

"All right," Dean finishes awkwardly.

He throws the rest of his sandwich in the trash when they leave the diner. Max takes his milkshake to go.

***

On the Oklahoma border Dean finally gets the balls to look at the pocket watch. Obviously it must have stopped – Sam's still alive and with them – but he hasn't been able to bring himself to touch it since he slipped it into the pocket of his jacket in front of Wilmington Elementary.

He doesn't bring it out of his pocket at first, just wraps his fingers around it and gets used to the peculiar weight of the metal, the cool, dead feel of it, and the way he can almost feel its ticking vibrating in his palm.

When he takes it out, he has his eyes closed, has to force himself to pry them open. It looks so shockingly mundane that he feels the crazy urge to cackle rise up from his stomach. His limbs feel hot and loose.

The lid flips open silently, and Dean breathes in sharply through his nose. Dried blood is still clinging to the clock face, but other than that it looks perfectly normal, like any old clock. The time isn't right – the hands read 9.00 and it's actually closer to 3.00 in the afternoon. Dean rubs a thumb over it thoughtfully, and then feels the thin lines of engraving under his fingertips. He turns it over.

_Heather Miller_. Dean stares dumbly. He's holding someone else's life in his hands and she's only got_ three hours left_.

He leaves the watch in a truck stop bathroom and doesn't tell Sam.

Max looks at Dean though, looks at him like maybe he knows, but Max doesn't say anything, either.

***

It's exactly four months from the day of his rescue that Sam finally breaks.

Dean's outside puttering around under the Impala when it happens. He's shivering in the cool October breeze – Indian summer his ass – when he hears the distinctive, comforting squeak of Sam's sneakers. Dean ignores Sam, of course.

Sam's not having any of it.

"Dean, we need to talk."

Dean can't stop his eyes from rolling. "Sam, we're Winchesters. We don't talk about our _feelings_."

"Come out so I can see you."

Sighing, Dean pulls himself laboriously out from under the car, making a big show of getting up, grunting and dusting his hands off unnecessarily. When he finally straightens, he's smirking.

"Sorry Sammy, I forgot to buy you flowers," Dean drawls, raising an eyebrow. "But if we hurry I bet we'll just catch the end of that tampon sale at the local Quick Stop."

Sam presses his lips together in a tight line, and when he opens his mouth, he knocks Dean's knees out from under him.

"Why won't you touch me?"

"Huh?" Dean exhales. His heart feels like it's stopped pumping. Sweat is breaking out in prickles, all over.

"It's been months now and you won't… fuck, Dean. You won't even look me in the eye half the time."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Dean lies, and then realizes that he's staring at a point over Sam's shoulder. He forces his eyes back to Sam's, and it's the hardest thing in the world.

Sam's whispering now, voice so soft Dean can barely hear.

"I thought what we had – I thought it was good, you know? I just, I want to know if it's something I did? Something that happened while I was… gone?"

Dean feels his throat contracting and he's blurting reassurances before he's really thought it through.

"Oh God no, Sam, no. It's not you. It's got nothing to do with you, it's me."

Sam's gaze is questioning.

"I, uh, you're not well?" Dean tries.

He doesn't _want_ to go any deeper than this. Sam doesn't need to know that Dean's jerking off every morning in the shower thinking about him, that Dean picked up some nameless chick in the last town they breezed through to fuck the edge off and he definitely doesn't need to know Dean couldn't even get it up.

Sam doesn't need to know that Dean wants so badly to run his hands over Sam's back, feel the newly strengthened muscles and the hard curve of ass, that Dean would give anything to be able to kiss Sam again and not wonder if it's slowly killing him.

"Bullshit."

"You won't get it."

"Try me." Sam's voice is flinty, unyielding, and Dean doesn't know how much further he can press the lie.

"Sammy –"

"Don't 'Sammy' me! I'm going fucking insane, Dean! I can't stop staring at your lips, man, and every time you fondle a gun-barrel I can't even see straight I get so goddamn hard. It's been months since you touched me, longer since we've fucked, and I _don't understand why_, so _tell _me!"

Dean bites his lip. Sam stares.

"I just don't think it's a good idea," Dean says, plucking at the front of his shirt.

"Then tell me why it's not, because I'm this close to pushing you up against that car and fucking you stupid. Or kicking you in the balls. I'm not sure which."

Dean's never seen Sam this desperate before and it's having this instantaneous effect on him – like going into a stripper joint on Viagra – that he can barely keep a handle on.

"It's my fault."

Sam narrows his eyes. "What is."

Dean waves his hand around aimlessly. "You know. _This. _ What happened."

Sam takes a step back.

"You think you're the one who got me kidnapped? That the reason Barney chose me is because – because we were having sex?" Sam's face would be comical, if Dean weren't so nervous he could puke. "… Are you _high_?"

"No?"

"Are you Satan?"

"Um, _no_."

"Ok, see, unless you're Satan and had direct say in whether the demon got back into hell or not – you. Are. Not. Responsible." Sam's hand reaches out to cup Dean's cheek, thumb rubbing under his eye. "I'm serious."

Dean doesn't say anything – he's too busy soaking in the rough feel of Sam's palm against his skin.

When he opens his eyes, Sam's looking at him intently.

Dean inhales shakily. "I'm sorry, Sam."

"You don't need to be."

A second later Sam's tongue is pushing into his mouth, rubbing thickly against his own, and Dean's head tilts back all by itself. Sam kisses sloppy and hard, taking as much of Dean in as he can, licking into his mouth and around the edges of his lips with such force that Dean's head bobs. Dean's shaking he wants this so much.

"Fuck," Dean gasps against Sam's sticky lips, a string of saliva still connecting them, and Sam smiles slowly, nipping the crown of Dean's cheek.

"Max rented another room."

Dean freezes. "He knows?"

"He's psychic, you idiot."

"Well, I _know_ that, I'm just tryin' to cover all my bases here!"

Sam laughs then, loud and long, and Dean realizes Sam hasn't laughed like that since before he left for college.

"Let's go," whispered hot in Dean's ear.

Dean's back hits the bed and he still feels like he's dreaming, Sam's hot mouth sucking on his neck like it's the best candy ever tasted. Dean's fingers are digging into the hard muscles of Sam's shoulders and his hips are rocking up helplessly, trying to rub against Sam, against _anything_ other than air.

"Fuck, Sam, I want – I want this," Dean gasps, tightening his thighs around Sam's hips and he needs his jeans off ten goddamn minutes ago.

"Been too long," Sam grunts, licks a line up Dean's jaw straight to his mouth, claims his lips again and snakes a hand between them to pop the button on Dean's jeans, peel them off his hips.

They squirm together, gasping as elbows hit soft spots and their knees bump awkwardly, but then Dean's jeans and underwear crumple to the floor and Sam's follow seconds later. Dean runs his palms up and under Sam's T-shirt, fanning his fingertips lightly across Sam's nipples.

"Take this off," Dean grates, not recognizing his own voice it's so lust-clogged and dirty.

Sam rears up, reaches behind his head and yanks. Dean hears a seam or two stretch, give way, and then Sam's dark, tousled head reappears and he's dragging Dean's grease-marked shirt up and off, raking his fingernails along Dean's torso and leaving goose bumps in his wake.

Sam's body is still too thin, too pale, but he's filling out again, shoulders heavy and strong, his forearms veined and fingers capable. Too capable, dancing a path down Dean's chest, around his belly button and grasping his cock, squeezing just this side of painful.

Dean can't help the yelp he lets out, or the way his eyelids start to flutter uncontrollably. It's just been so fucking long and he _wants_. He wants. It's all he can think, all he can feel.

He digs his heels into Sam's ass, pulls Sam tight against him and murmurs, "Fuck me," in his ear.

Sam shudders, exhaling noisily, before moaning, "Christ Dean, you can't just _say _that."

"All right. Get ready, Sam, 'cause here it comes: Fuck. My. Ass."

"I don't – I don't have lube or –"

"God, shut up. My duffle, side pocket."

Sam shoots Dean a look.

"Never hurts to be prepared," Dean shrugs. "First lesson Dad taught us."

"Let's not talk about Dad, Dean," Sam breathes, amused, before dragging himself away from Dean's clinging hands and rifling through Dean's duffle.

Dean stares blatantly at the curves of Sam's legs, the dimples in his ass, the mole right above his left ass cheek.

"I can feel that, you know," Sam drawls, and when he turns he's got a swagger in his step that draws Dean's eyes right to his dick. Perfect.

"Do I have to say it again?"

Sam slides back onto the bed, shoves Dean's legs apart with the width of his shoulders and, grinning, drizzles lube all over his fingers. Dean doesn't have time to think before Sam sinks a finger slowly inside and he's arching, moaning breathlessly like it's a goddamn Olympic sport.

By the time Sam's done stretching him, three fingers fucking leisurely in and out, Dean's dizzy from lack of air and the loss of blood to his brain.

"Sam," he pants out, voice wobbling wildly, "Please, Sam. Please, I need it."

Sam moves up Dean's body slowly, taking his time, biting at a nipple and all the while twisting his fingers slowly, slowly, stretching Dean carefully.

Personally, Dean's way beyond giving a fuck about this whole stretching thing.

"Sammy, God, just _do_ it, for fuck's sake!"

Sam finally removes his hand and Dean hears the soft squeak as he squeezes the lube bottle again. Sam's intake of breath is sharp against Dean's lips as Sam strokes the cold gel gently onto his cock, waiting for it to warm, bringing himself as close as he can get without losing it. Dean's squirming beneath him, practically vibrating, muttering all sorts of filth into Sam's ear and it's only making Sam harder.

Dean suddenly hitches his hips up, manages after a few awkward attempts to get a leg up onto Sam's shoulder, and Sam slips forward, can't stop. He uses a hand to guide himself, gradually applying pressure, shoving past Dean's boundaries one by one, wincing with him, until Dean's completely filled, completely open, and almost sobbing with it.

"I knew you'd be like this," Sam says, kissing Dean's eyelids.

Dean's face is slack, but he still turns his head, searching, pulling hungrily at Sam's mouth with his own as Sam hooks Dean's other leg over his arm. Sam slides deeper and Dean draws a shaky breath. Sam waits, even though he looks like he's going slowly crazy.

After a moment Dean hisses through his teeth, "Yes–" and Sam takes it as his cue, starts to move.

At first Sam pulls out and pushes back in gently, all the way, until he's nestled firmly against Dean's ass. Dean's muscles flutter around Sam's cock as Dean chews his lower lip, looking flushed and sweaty. Sam continues, so steady, so achingly unhurried, but Dean wants more than that. He wants to be _fucked_, and he says so, right in Sam's ear, biting the lobe and the sensitive skin underneath.

Sam stills for an instant, before a forced sounding 'shit' leaves his lips and he hitches Dean's legs up higher, almost bending him in half, and starts fucking him in earnest.

When Sam starts to lose it, starts to come, scalding inside Dean, he fumbles his hand around Dean's dick, begins to jack him with a painfully tight fist. Sam's barely able to stay coordinated as he shudders through his orgasm, pulling Dean along with him, and he moans when Dean comes, slumping forward as Dean's ass contracts and Dean tenses, spills, breaks open and cries out.

They lie in silence for a while, panting, Dean's legs still up in the air and Sam almost falling asleep. Dean finally starts to shift uncomfortably and Sam stirs, rolls off and to the side and pushes sweaty hair out of his eyes.

"Well, fuck," Dean says faintly, and Sam can't stop laughing all of a sudden. He buries his face in Dean's neck and bites at the tendons.

"Good fuck or bad fuck?"

"Oh good, definitely good. Fuckin-a, Sammy."

"Excellent."

Dean stops abruptly when he hears applause coming from the room next door. He bangs loudly on the wall, throws a few heartfelt curses until he sees the look on Sam's face.

"What?" Suddenly it dawns on him, "Oh, _shit_, don't tell me that's _Max_."

"Uh," Sam says, but his mouth is tugging up at the corners.

"Goddammit! You _dork_!" Dean laughs. He can't help himself.

"Aw. I love you too, Dean." Sam leers, tracing a finger over the cut of Dean's hip.

Dean presses a hand over Sam's, stilling it low on his stomach. There it is again, that L-word. It shifts something – he feels the finality as pushes it into its proper place – and suddenly he's the one with serious face and wide eyes.

"Sam, you have to know by now. I was never – this was never a game to me."

Sam's mouth is solemn, but his eyes say everything that's important to Dean. It's enough to have him blurting more, enough that Sam keeps staring without answering, leaves the rest of this up to him.

"This love thing. It goes both ways, all right?" Dean feels so fucking stupid, exposed, like any second Sam's going to laugh in his face, even though Dean knows that's something Sam would never do.

Sam's lips curl in a slow smile, and then break apart into a huge grin that blinds Dean with its intensity.

"You mean it?" Smile so wide, but clearly Sam needs to know.

"Yeah. I do."

Sam presses his face into Dean's shoulder, wraps an arm around Dean's waist, and mumbles, "Thank fucking God."

Dean presses back and wraps himself all around Sam, just lets this be, and it's good. Really good.

Next door, Max laughs, clear as a bell.

***

EPILOGUE

Max asks to be dropped off on the road to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dean pulls the car over onto the shoulder, ignoring the honking horns, and both he and Sam turn around to regard Max in the backseat.

"Are you sure?" Sam asks.

"What the fuck?" Dean asks, at the same time.

Sam shoots him a look.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am," Max says. He smiles sadly. "It's been… wonderful, you guys, I'm not going to lie, but I feel like I need some time for myself."

"I'm calling Oprah," Dean says, pulling out his cell phone, "this is prime-time TV."

Sam looks aghast, Max grins widely, and that's when Dean knows he's really gonna miss Max. Kid actually laughs at his jokes, for one.

"Dean, you asshole, put that away!" Sam says, punching Dean in the arm. Dean grins at Sam, drops him a wink, and then turns back to Max.

"So this is where you wanna be? New Mexico?"

"Don't see why not," Max shrugs, looking out the window and squinting in the sun. "Listen, you guys are like my best friends and I'm not doing this to hurt you."

"We get it," Sam reassures, reaching a hand out to Max's shoulder.

"It's just that now I know what's out there, I know how to protect myself and I'm… I'm still alive," Max says softly. "I want to take advantage of it. There's things I want to do that I don't think I can with you guys. I gotta start relying on myself for some stuff."

Dean nods. Max is so much like Sam. It hurts more than he expected, but at least there's no yelling this time.

Sam sighs, says, "Sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same, Max. Do what you think will make you happy. You have our cell numbers; you know how to reach us."

"I do," Max grins, his eyes bright. He hefts his duffle. "I'm actually already packed. Didn't have much in the first place, and with all this traveling you lose everything that's not important, anyway."

"Okay." Dean slaps the top of the front seat emphatically. "You want us to drop you off at a truck stop? Gas station? Motel? Or do you wanna try your luck hitchhiking? No offense, but I think you're gonna have to show a little leg to get anywhere in these parts."

"Next small town is good. If it's got a greyhound station, even better."

"Comin' right up, sugar."

Dean catches Sam's eye before he turns back to the wheel, and signals his way onto the highway. They drive for another hour before they find a town. The town's 'Welcome' sign is lying drunkenly facedown on the side of the road, knocked over by some hapless motorist, and Dean thinks it's fitting that Max doesn't know where he's beginning but he knows where he wants to go.

Max asks him to stop in front of the Town Hall.

Sam gets out of the car, pulls Max into a tight hug, whispers something in his ear that makes Max laugh and Sam sniffle. Then he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a wad of cash and shoves it into Max's hand.

"That's one hundred dollars. Should get you somewhere."

"Sam, I can't –" Max starts.

"Take it," Dean says flatly. "You're no good at pool."

Max faces Dean, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Dean remembers that he used to hate Max. _Which is completely fucking ridiculous_, he thinks, and yanks Max into a one-armed embrace that could easily be mistaken for a headlock.

"Stock up on matches, dude," Dean mumbles, rubbing his knuckles roughly over the top of Max's head before pushing him away again. "Better yet, buy a lighter. Never know when you're gonna need it."

Max's smile is watery now. Christ, Dean lives with a bunch of _women_. He ignores the scratchy feeling at the back of his own throat.

"I'll see you guys."

"Call us," Sam holds up his cell phone helpfully.

Dean waves. "Don't be a stranger."

Max sketches a quick wave in return before he spins away and walks down the street. They lose sight of him when he turns the corner.

"Goddammit. This is like – I have no idea what this is like. It sucks."

Dean doesn't look at Sam when he answers. "Yeah. It does. Sucks just as much the second time around."

Sam sighs. "Dean, I can't say I'm sorry anymore. I did it, I can never regret it, but I'm _back_ now. I'm back."

"I know Sammy. I'm just getting used to it, is all." _You being back. _ Dean looks down at his boots, then squints up at the bell tower of the Town Hall. "Besides, you don't own all the emo around here. Jesus – I can cry tears of extreme emotional pain, too, every now and then."

Sam bursts out laughing and Dean knows they're gonna be all right, he and Sam, no matter what happens. They're just them – happy – Sam'n'Dean.

With Max, part of them but out there, now, figuring himself out and finding his way, but always with a way back to them.

Surprisingly, Dean's really, really okay with that.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Dru is my life, my love and my lady. She beta'd this for me and I don't know how to thank her except to say that I couldn't have done it without her. She's stuck with me from the beginning. Thank you, baby. So much. ♥
> 
> I totally made up Wilmington. I'm sorry if I offended anyone from Montana - I've only been there twice.
> 
> I was going to have an Oscar-caliber speech, but you know, all I really want to say is thank you for reading. Thank you for letting me take 6 months to write this, and please, be gentle. It's kind of like my baby.
> 
> ♥


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